The Lights Go Down
by eyrianone
Summary: Cat's out of the bag for both of them, and Castle is crushed in the wake of the truth. Because if she cares for him at all - then how could she do this? ***Finalist for 'Best Drama' in the 2012 Castle Fanfiction Awards.***
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Lights Go Down.

**Author:** eyrianone

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** Cat's out of the bag for both of them, and Castle is crushed in the wake of the truth - because if she cares for him at all - then how could she do this?

**Spoilers:** Thru Season 4.

**Disclaimer:** I hope 'Via Lethe' won't mind if I pinch my favorite disclaimer of all time from her – 'Words are mine – World ain't.'

**A/N:** Someone asked AM whose secret he thought was worse - 'Castle's' or 'Beckett's'.

He answered very diplomatically by saying either had the potential to be relationship dynamite. Most people seem to think Castle's secret is the bigger one – and that Beckett lying about what she remembers, knowing he loves her and denying it is something that Castle will just brush off with a smile and a shrug as long as she tells him how she feels.

I disagree. Not that I don't think they will make a far bigger deal of Castle keeping Beckett out her mother's case – which is done out of love. Pure love, because he knows what it might cost him when he one day has to tell her, but he's putting her life before anything else including his own heart and his own happiness. Kate's secret on the other hand – personally I see what she's done as way, way worse – don't hate me – I love Kate – but what she did was cruel and self absorbed. I was really shocked by it when I saw 'Rise' – I'm still shocked by it now. This is my exploration of that.

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><p>Night is falling, and the drive to his Hampton's home has been accomplished, even if the journey itself is a total blur. He remembers none of it. Just his frantic and overwhelming need to get out of the city fast; to move – to flee – to outrun this crushing, debilitating pain insistent on burning its way through his chest. Castle leaves his SUV parked haphazardly in the large circular driveway, he's the only one here and he cares absolutely nothing for appearances at this moment. Stumbling out of the drivers' door he's clinging to the hope that the ocean air will prove more easily breathable than the city's. A hope that fades on a single choking breath as the agony in his chest persists, and for a brief moment Castle wonders what in the hell he's doing.<p>

Surviving – his brain supplies as an answer. He's surviving. Because there is absolutely nothing more that he _can_ do.

He has nothing with him because he stopped to pack nothing, knowing that his wardrobe here would suffice, so he lets himself into the huge house and on auto-pilot he climbs the stairs to the first floor. The rambling home is eerily still. Dark and silent it feels as singularly lonely as he does. The author heads to his bedroom, kicks the door shut with a satisfying slam behind him, and falls onto the covers of the California king-bed to lie staring at the ceiling above him in the dimness.

And still her stilted revelation won't leave him.

And though he's tried, it seems he cannot outrun the memories – they all come flooding back.

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><p>Kate paces in ever decreasing circles in the reception area of Dr. Burke's offices. It seems both a comfort and mocking mark against her that she already has a scheduled appointment today. A 7am appointment, the first one of the shrink's day - which she is currently eighteen minutes early for. Thankfully Dr. Burke's receptionist shares Kate's propensity to be in the office early, which allows Kate to pace inside instead of out on the street.<p>

The detective has a tepid cup of coffee clutched in a death-grip and a scared shitless look on her normally poker face that she has no remaining energy left to hide. She hasn't slept at all last night, too angry to begin with, but as the fight between herself and Castle escalated anger dissipated and guilt – devastation even took over.

She's never seen him like that before. Never wants to see him like that again. The truth of what she's done to him is no longer a sick theory in her head but a cold hard reality she's terrified she cannot fix.

"_Doesn't mean I'm not still angry."_

Castle told her that on the swing set all those months ago now – but truthfully after that day he never demonstrated any residual animosity towards her for her three month disappearing act. But that's because there was a crucial piece of his puzzle missing, and now that he has that piece – now that her secret is out – God she wishes angry was what he was.

Angry and upset – they can deal with that.

Utterly heart-broken and completely withdrawing – well she never saw that coming.

And what scares her most is the realization of her own self-absorption. Famed for her empathetic nature she never, not for a single moment saw that she's only like that with the relatives of her homicide victims. Because in them she sees her own past, her own loss, her own desperate need for justice and closure.

Outside of that narrow purview she doesn't exercise the empathy she's capable of, doesn't put herself in others shoes when it isn't directly related to her job. So she took those three months, and she lied about what she remembered and it was all about her.

What _she_ needed.

What _she _wanted.

What _she_ felt confident dealing with.

And yes - she was the victim of a horrible crime. And yes - she almost died that day. And yes - she was a mess – rightly so - and she dealt with it all in the only way she's ever dealt with things.

But he _is _her partner. He _is _the single most important person in her life. He's in love with her – he's deeply in love with her – and he watched her die in that ambulance and then she left him alone with the trauma of it.

She lied to his face and then vanished on him.

For three _months_.

Thinking she was healing while loving another man.

Doesn't matter that she didn't want him to see her like that.

Doesn't matter that she cannot stand to seem weak.

Why did she not once consider how hard things might be for him?

Partnership is a two-way street.

She imagines what if their roles that day had been reversed – if he'd been faster and taken that bullet as he tried too. If she'd been the one watching his heart stop, the one covered in his blood, begging him to stay with her – the one confessing her heart – only to have him survive – then ask her to stay away until he saw fit to call her.

If he'd coldly told her – what she told him.

She imagines that Gina is still in the picture at this time.

If he'd done all that to her – how would she feel?

Betrayed. Unwanted. Taken advantage off. Heartbroken. Rejected. Unworthy.

Castle is incapable of the first and should never be made to feel any of the others.

Not when he's wanted. Adored. Needed. The one thing in this entire world she cannot seem to live without.

Her Castle is in ruins – and on her shoulders lays the blame.

The detective truly hates herself for her actions right now – hates how she breaks people's hearts. Hates that she didn't see how selfish she was being until the agony in Castle's blue eyes told her exactly what she'd done.

First Josh.

Now Castle.

And if she cannot mend it – if she cannot have him now, when she's finally able to admit that he is ALL she wants – then her wall will become a fortress and she will never be free.

And she isn't prepared to let that happen. They've come _so_ far – Dr. Burke said he could help her – and she's never needed help more than this moment.

Her shrink walks through the door and Beckett feels her knees give a little in relief.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you all for your amazing response to this story.  
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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>: Nothing but the Truth.

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><p>Castle wakes up early – before dawn has really broken. The winter sun is just beginning to crawl weakly over the ocean horizon, sickly and providing little warmth in the cloudless navy twilight sky.<p>

It feels appropriate. He's slept in his clothes, just passed out on the bed where he slumped when he arrived late last night. He doesn't remember dreaming, doesn't remember falling asleep even. Isn't at all glad he's awake.

Rubbing a hand over his jaw he stares up at the ceiling again, just as he did for hours last night. The ceiling is blank, and white – clean and stark like the empty pages of a new novel waiting to be written. But Castle has no words to fill up the empty spaces right now – he can't even describe how he feels – he's just . . . maybe empty is the word.

He feels as blank as the ceiling – as a fresh page and right now that's good isn't it? Blank is way better than the unrelenting agony of the night before. Blank is at least the temporary absence of that pain – he doesn't fool himself the feeling will last. It's a borrowed state for him – borrowed from Kate maybe – because he himself always seems to experience all his emotions fully. This closed down, closed off, hollowed out state where the pain cannot touch him – this is a long, very long way from his usual M.O.

He almost likes it – and along with the suddenness of that thought comes another one, that this is exactly what she does – and then he really doesn't like it anymore. This is how she was able to shut him away from her life for three months; this is how she didn't care what he was doing – suffering – all that time. He doesn't ever want to be like that – to be capable of that – that is NOT who he wants to become.

He's a writer. Writers _need _their emotions. Need the ability to fully and always experience their emotions, because narrative without empathy, without communicating the nuances of a characters state of being – is lifeless. If he lets himself go down this road he'll lose the most fundamental part of who he is – no – he must not do it. He won't, he can't . . . just no. It's borrowed . . . it's not him . . . time to return it and then man up Rick, he thinks.

Castle sits up.

He searches internally for a feeling, any feeling. He tries picturing her face from their awful fight last night – the green of her eyes, her breathtaking, beautiful face twisted in anger and despair hits him like a sledgehammer - stealing his breath.

Ironic that he now feels better because he feels worse – really ironic. He breathes slowly, God it hurts again . . . like hell in fact, but he will deal. He has to feel . . . he's a writer.

He wonders if the pain will ease if he moves, and suddenly he needs to be moving again – just like the night before. He gets off the bed and hunts for some running gear in the walk-in closet. Five minutes later his sneaker-ed feet hit the sand of the private beach at the rear of his vacation home and he takes off as fast as he can. He's a little out of shape and he knows it – so much stress, so much worrying about Beckett, and forever hiding both his love, and what else he knew about her mother's case have taken their toll on him this last year. Its all wore him out so much that he stopped exercising as he always has in the past. Two hundred meters down the beach from his home and his sides are burning, but it detracts from the pain in his heart and so he just pounds it out. He'll run until he physically cannot move – he may have accepted that he _needs _to feel, he cannot, he will not stop that, but it doesn't mean he can't run away.

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><p>Dr. Burke can tell from a single glance at his patient that something, something unlike what's brought her to his door before has occurred.<p>

Kate Beckett is not exactly what the shrink would term 'an open-book', but right now she's scared out her mind and doing absolutely nothing to mask it. Very un-Kate like indeed.

The last few months Kate has been more open, more verbally honest with him than she was when she was first ordered to see him. In the beginnings of their association the detective was as closed lipped and poker-faced as any cop that he's dealt with because of 'job-induced-trauma'. Because not every cop the department sends him has been wounded in the line of duty – some are ordered to counseling because they are just showing signs of stress. Some because they've been working too many cases involving children, others because they've had to discharge their firearm and take a life and the department needs to know that they're handling it okay.

There are many reasons, but he's certainly had other cops – like Kate – under his care because they became victims. Still he thinks of Kate as special though – because she was right when she told him that he very rarely sees his patients back in his office once their psyche-eval is done. And Kate, well he's been so pleased to see her struggling to make the progress she needs to make. It's very gratifying for him when he gets to witness, to be a part of helping someone turn their life around. Or in Kate's case, regain the ability to live her life on her own terms, not on terms she'd felt forced upon her.

To see this incredible, strong, beautiful woman emerging from the hollow stick-thin, shell of a person she was the first day he met her. Dr. Burke thinks that the day this woman can embrace her life fully again, can let herself be loved again – that day might be the highlight of his medical career.

"Kate?" Dr. Burke shakes himself out of his musings and utters her name as question.

His patient replies with a single word. "Help." Her tone so frightened she sounds almost unrecognizable, so the doctor smiles reassuringly and indicates his office door.

"Come on it Kate. Let's see what I can do."

Once the heavy office door is fastened behind them, Kate sinks into her usual chair and raises anxious eyes, clouded by uncertainty at him.

"What has you so upset Kate?" The shrink inquires softly.

"It's Castle." The cop answers. "I let it slip – what I've been lying to him about. That I remember everything."

"_Stay with me Kate. Don't leave me – please. Stay with me okay. Kate – I love you. I love you Kate."_

A startled bark of a laugh escapes her. An unhappy sound, full of shame - for her partners words to her that sunny May morning are not only etched into her memory but branded on her heart. They scare her, they ensnare her, and she will recall them as clear as day until she _does_ take her last breath.

"He was upset then?" The doctor asks.

The dark haired detective bows her head and nods, just barely perceptively. Staring at the floor she tries to explain.

"We were fighting. We were screaming at each other. Castle . . . Castle's been working on my case; on my mother's case – behind my back. He's deliberately withheld information from me – because he was told if he didn't keep me away from the investigation – the next time they tried – they _would_ kill me. And I was SO angry at him . . . that he thought he had the right to decide for me. That there were leads when I thought there were none. I felt so betrayed . . . "Kate trails off.

"And then?" Dr. Burke prompts.

Her green eyes find the doctor's kind brown ones. "I don't know exactly what happened . . . one minute I was furious and he was just as mad at me – kept yelling about me not understanding that he could not lose me again. Didn't I understand how impossible telling me had become for him? That he knew me. He knew me so well that he didn't think for a minute that I would listen, would let him handle it if I knew. That it was his life at stake too . . . because he couldn't do it again, couldn't go through it again – not when he'd lost me once. And then before I knew what I was saying it was out my mouth. That I knew he loved me. That I'd never forgotten what he told me that day in the cemetery, but that loving me did not give him the right to make decisions for me. I kept going on and on. Until I realized he wasn't arguing with me anymore. He was just looking at me."

When she stops this time there are heartbroken tears falling from her eyes. Silently they slip down her pale cheeks and fall unacknowledged to the ground. She stares at her doctor helplessly, her normally squared shoulders slouched.

"Looking at you – looking at you how?" The calm voice still somehow manages to demand an answer.

"I don't know that I can describe it. No one has ever looked at me like that." She says brokenly.

"You need to try." Dr. Burke encourages.

Kate covers her face with her hands. Recalling it – reliving and trying to articulate it – it's SO painful. It hurts as much as getting shot ever did – in a different way. Her face still covered she begins to speak. Her words . . . disjointed . . .

"Like . . . it wasn't just . . . it was betrayal - definitely. And it was heartbreak. But it was more – worse – so much worse – like I'd taken everything from him – everything he held dear – and smashed it into a billion pieces. All his dreams – his hopes – and it was like I was someone he'd never seen before - almost a stranger in his eyes."

Silence greets her admission. When she risks looking at the shrink again he looks thoughtful.

"So what happened then Kate?"

"He left." She says.

"He left?"

The detective nods. "We were in his study – all of my case, my mother's case laid out on his electronic storyboard behind me. He turned it off. He didn't answer me when I spoke to him. He walked to the door of his apartment, took his car keys and his jacket and he just left. I waited all night – he hasn't come home. And then I came here."

"You're worried about him." The doctor says.

The cop nods but then shakes her head.

"This isn't worry. This is fear. I sat there in his study when he was gone and I looked all night at what he's been doing. He doesn't have much more to go on, but someone out there – someone he won't tell me anything about has fed him some things. And the more I re-thought it – the more I saw that he's right. If he'd told me when he first got this lead – I would be dead by now. I would have run at it – I was freefalling already and he was the parachute. He's always my parachute. He gives and he gives . . . and I pull him in, and I push him away. Those three months I ignored him – I've tried but I can only imagine how much that hurt him. And his only comfort was that I didn't remember what he'd told me – it made that silence bearable somehow. I took that comfort away last night – and something broke between us – something broke in him."

Dr. Burke nods. "His vision of you."

Beckett chokes on a sob – but this is why she came here – to get the awful, no-holds barred truth.

"So help me fix it – I beg you – please tell me what I'm supposed to do."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thanks so much you guys for the alerts, favorites and reviews - I will try and respond to them as best I can - forgive the group response thank you for chapter two - I'll do better - I promise.  
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><p><strong>Chapter Three:<strong> Rain is Falling.

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><p>There is desperation in his patient's earth-toned eyes that Dr. Burke never recalls seeing before – not even during the recent 'sniper' case that the young detective had to deal with. The fear fairly pouring off of her in rolling waves is palpable; her slight fingers clench and unclench - her knuckles white, as she continues to cling to her coffee cup.<p>

"I never meant to hurt him." She whispers, a fresh wave of tears slipping free of her eyes.

Dr. Burke sighs softly, debating his response for a good thirty seconds before he opens his mouth. There is no real way he can 'fix' this situation for her – and he knows Kate already knows that – so she's here because she doesn't trust what her instincts are telling her right now. She's learnt that her instinctual emotional responses are what have gotten her into this mess with her partner – but that he can help her by pointing out the old patterns that she needs to break. Being 'self-honest' is the first thing she needs to do – second she needs to allow her natural empathy to guide her where she normally closes it off - in matters of the heart.

The shrink starts with honesty. "Yes you did."

Her beautiful face freezes in shock. She opens her mouth on an instinctive protest, but when his eyebrow inclines she stifles it, closes her mouth and stares at him – mutiny in her tightening jaw.

"You knew closing him out - disappearing on him - would hurt him. You knew lying to him would hurt him – but you did both. You need to own to those choices before you can make any moves to make amends here Kate."

Silence. So he waits her out – and finally she speaks.

"You're right." She says at length. "I did _know _it would hurt him. I did. But I swear to you that I - I just reacted. I knew, but I didn't _think_ if that makes any sense. I was hurting so badly and he was so caught up – so involved in everything that had happened. I needed to shut down. I needed to distance myself from him, as much as I needed to distance myself from everything else – I couldn't seem to separate the one from the other, so I didn't stop to consider that while I needed space – that was probably the last thing _he _needed from me."

The shrink nods thoughtfully.

"Ideally - what do you believe did he need then? He asks softly.

The detective breaks eyes contact and looks out of the office window lost in her thoughts. It takes her a few minutes to formulate an answer. "To be there - for me, while I recovered. To be told I didn't blame him for what had occurred. An honest acknowledgement of what he told me when he thought I might die."

Dr. Burke nods again. "Anything else?" He asks.

Kate's eyes fall to the floor. "To know whether I loved him too." She says it so quietly it's barely even a whisper. "Maybe that - that more than anything else. If I could have given him that knowledge the morning he came to see me in the hospital – then when I took the space I needed he wouldn't have felt alone."

"Maybe." Her doctor replies. "But instead of telling him – you lied about what you remembered, and then next time you speak to him three months have passed. In that three month period – did you ever think of reaching out to him?"

Kate nods her head. "Every day."

Dr. Burke sighs. This is what he suspected. Kate has never really opened up about her recovery period before in their sessions – she told him what she thought he wanted to hear. Oh she's told him about the break-up with the surgeon she was seeing prior to her shooting. So he knows she knew that relationship was going to end and she didn't want to involve the man in her recovery because of that. She's told him about staying in her father's cabin, and about her physiotherapy.

But every time he questioned her about the relationships she abandoned during that time - (Because it wasn't _just_ her partner she cut off contact with) – She closed up completely. He suspects that's not because she isn't aware it was selfish of her – but he wonders if she's ever really looked at it the way they did - time to ask and see perhaps.

"So what you're saying is that _every_ day you consciously made a new decision to continue hurting him? To chose what you wanted – over what he needed?" It's an over-simplification – the harshest comment on what she did - the shrink knows this, but this seems to be the time for a wake-up call if ever there was one.

Kate gasps. She's never looked at her behavior like that before, turned it around like that – but she knows instantly that Castle has – Castle did. The moment she spilled her guts while they were arguing, he asked himself that same question - and knowing her so well he also knew the answer. Suddenly the absolute agony she witnessed in his eyes before he walked out on her makes complete and twisted sense. He's so very destroyed by this not just because she lied to him – but because he _knows_ now she chose over and over and over again to keep right on breaking his heart.

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><p>He ran for hours – in fits and starts – but he covered miles of sandy beach before he turned his footsteps home. He's showered and managed coffee – he even tried eating but everything tasted awful in his mouth. The house felt confining – despite its size and he's been driven out onto the balcony adjacent to his room – a lonely figure in the light wind.<p>

Castle stares up at the cloudless winter sky above him and shivers – for some reason unnerved by this perfect sunny day that's as cold as ice. It's silly. She hasn't really sucked all the warmth out of life – it just feels that way right now. Feels like his heart is trying to freeze its way over in some vain attempt at protecting itself.

Damn his stupid heart and damn him.

Castle closes his eyes against the bitter sting of tears. He'll be damned if he cries over this – didn't he swear he'd never allow himself to be here again? To be so vulnerable to someone – handing them the power to make him feel this worthless simply because of what they aren't willing to do.

Did he learn nothing from Kyra? Or from Meredith? Or from Gina?

Apparently not.

He knows he's far from perfect but there seems to be a common theme in his serious relationships. Each of the women he's loved – each of them only loved him _so_ far – and none of them ever put _him_ first when the chips were really down.

Kyra was too concerned with what her family wanted for her – who they wanted for her – and it wasn't him and she wouldn't fight for him.

Meredith's only love was and is herself. She'd dazzled him – married him – given him the family he'd always craved and then cheated on him with no more thought for _him_ than she'd give what she's having for lunch.

And Gina – Gina loved the idea of him. Of _what_ he was far more than she ever loved _who_ he was.

And he's just not built that way – when he loves, he loves with every part of himself. He gives, he makes sacrifices. He doesn't know any other way to do it unless he keeps all his romantic entanglements – meaningless. The 'playboy' thing – sure it helped to sell his books but that was really just as well because when he filed for divorce the last time he was sure he was done – done with _love _full stop.

He was _so_ over it.

And it worked – for the most part. It worked for years – and he'd been content to settle for that. Truly. Until Kate walked into his life.

And she changed - _everything._

He never counted on Katherine Beckett. – No he never saw her coming, and then by the time he did it was too late. Nikki Heat had been born – and Jameson Rook along with her. And Castle was ass-over-tea-kettle in love and convinced that this time things were different. Because Kate was different. She wasn't like those who'd come before her - an abandon-er – a cheater – a controller. She was a 'one-and-done', give it your _all_ kinda girl. She was built like him - she'd told him so herself. But right now he sure feels like a fool because he believed her.

It's weird he thinks. Each time they'd separated it never felt permanent or even real to him, not really. It never felt like it was the _end _of what they were – or of what they were becoming - because the force between them was stronger than magnetic – it was more like gravity. It held him in her life while she held him in her hands, and there was no way to escape it without the use of forces almost beyond comprehension.

Castle looks skyward again – and wonders if those forces have now been found.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:** From the end of the world.

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><p>When the phone shrills in the bedroom behind him, Castle jumps almost a foot in the air. <em>Jesus<em>.

Swallowing back his emotions, he goes back inside the house and picks the offending item up. His heart is racing from the scare the damn thing gave him and he kinda wants to hurl the thing out the window – until he looks down at the caller I.D and the parental side of him takes immediate control. He answers.

"Hey." He says. Hoping the single syllable comes out even – normal.

"Dad – thank God. What are you doing in the Hamptons? I've been calling you and calling you and you aren't answering on your cell – even though it's me and I couldn't get hold of Detective Beckett either (Castle flinches at the mention of her name). You haven't been seen at the precinct and when I asked the doorman if he'd seen you at all he said the SUV was missing from the garage. I just had this weird feeling so I thought I'd call the Hamptons, I mean I didn't expect you to answer . . . but here you are and . . . Dad what's going on? Is something wrong?"

His daughter's questions are all running into each other, and Castle can tell from the stress in her voice that he's scared her – even though technically he's only been gone less than half a day.

"I'm sorry pumpkin. I would have called by tonight and let you know where I was – but I should have thought to tell you before I left. I apologize." He says gently.

"Dad what's the matter?" His daughter replies. "You never just disappear to the Hamptons – and judging by the fact that your bed wasn't slept in this morning you just ran out of here last night. So spill."

He debates with himself for a long moment just how much of this to dump on Alexis, in the end deciding to stick with as much truth as possible – he's in too much pain right now to go into _all_ the gory details.

"Everything is going to be okay Alexis. I just had a fight with Detective Beckett – and I really need some time by myself right now to figure out what I want to do next."

"A fight about what Dad? Did she find out about your murder board – is that what happened? Let me guess – she was really, really mad at you and she kicked you out the precinct – dammit Dad, Grams and I warned you what would happen if you kept this stuff from her."

Castle closes his weary eyes. "Yes and no." He breathes.

"What does that mean?" His daughter demands.

"Yes she found out. Yes it started a fight. No she didn't kick me out the precinct – and I don't want to get into it Alexis – let's just say I have some things to figure out and that I don't know right now when I'll be home. Gram's is there, and I trust you Alexis – I know you'll be fine without me for a few days."

Alexis is quiet at his pronouncement.

"Alexis?"

"There's something you aren't telling me Dad. And you sound weird – it's freaking me out. Is Kate okay? Is she investigating her mom's case again? You're scaring me – are you guys in danger – is that why you left?" His daughter's voice is high-pitched and panicked, unhappy.

The author sighs – this is all so messed up. This time yesterday everything was fine – it was good even. Today the sky is falling and it feels like the world is ending and he just – he does not want to talk about it – but he has to give Alexis something.

"I'm not in any danger – I swear to you." He says, pleased when he manages to keep his voice calm – level. "As for Kate (God – just saying her name is like being stabbed) - I don't know if she's running at her mother's case – I really hope not, but I don't know Alexis. But that isn't why I left – I just . . . I just need some time to think pumpkin – some time to decide if . . . "

Castle trails off; he doesn't want to put his choices into words – because if he speaks it, somehow it will all become real. Suddenly he'll have to face the fact that there are decisions – life changing decisions that he actually has to make, as opposed to theoretical choices that maybe he doesn't. But then who is he kidding – running away from this can only last so long.

"Decide what Dad?" The teenager asks him very gently – as if she knows what she's asking of him is something he dreads admitting.

He tries to put her off. "Maybe you don't want to know." There is humor in his tone – but it's the dark kind. The bleak kind. And it won't put Alexis off.

"Dad I love you. I worry about you. Please don't keep me in the dark – not now – not after what happened to Kate this spring. I'm almost eighteen . . . I'm not a child – if it concerns you then I need to know."

When he answers it's not an answer really – it's a statement, its what he feels _has _to be true because it's the only explanation he has now for three months of silence.

_I remember._

"She doesn't love me." Is all he gets out, before his throat closes up and his heart begins to stutter – he swears it actually feels like his heart is skipping beats. His fingers tighten on the phone, his knuckles white with the force as he tries to focus on anything else but the crushing sensation he feels - everywhere.

He hears a gasp on the line and his brain leaps on the sound - feels vindicated. His daughter is shocked. Stunned. Like he's shocked, was shocked – okay is shocked, can't help but be shocked - because it is shocking . . .isn't it? That their story is playing out like this – so different from the tale he's told himself. So radically opposed to the fable he thought he was living.

"_That's what all the great love stories are about right? Beating the odds?"_

"_I hope they make it."_

"_Yeah . . . me too."_

The now painful memory is interrupted by Alexis.

"Dad . . . did Kate really say that? "

Is it his imagination or is Alexis crying?

"Pumpkin . . . "

"Tell me . . . Did she _say_ it – Dad?

Those are definitely tears in her voice, and that's disbelief in her tone.

"Alexis . . ."

"_Dad!_ Did . . . she . . . _say_ . . . it."

"She didn't have to say it Alexis. Her actions did all the talking for her."

He hears a hiccup. "What actions? Dad - are you sure? I haven't always been fair to Detective Beckett – but I watched her when you were a hostage in that bank and it sure looked like she loved you to me."

"_Castle?" _

"_Castle?" _

"_CASTLE?" _

"_Beckett!"_

"_How are you?" All he sees is a smile more radiant than the sun._

But this is how easy it is to be blind. To see what you want to see he thinks. No more.

"I'm sure she cares Alexis – no that's unfair of me - I _know_ she cares. But with what I've learned now – well that changes what I thought she maybe felt for me and I'd be a fool to keep deluding myself Alexis – and I don't want to be her fool anymore."

"I'm so sorry Dad. So what are you going to do?"

Castle sighs. "I don't know. "

"Can you tell me when you're coming home?"

The writer shakes his head even though of course his daughter cannot see it over the phone. "I don't know."

* * *

><p>It hits her so hard – the monumental stupidity of what she's done – that she sits immobile in Dr. Burke's office for a good five minutes after his last question. Her stomach hurts, her patched up heart is aching and her head is pounding – she actually feels a little sick.<p>

She never, not once in all the times she thought about telling him she remembered – pictured the outcome of her confession like this. She sees now that her various pictured scenarios all grossly underestimated him – the lover in him. That side of him that she's seen so many times, looking out at her from the depths of his eyes – that side that leaves her slightly breathless and scares her silly.

And now the truths are undeniable.

She's ready to be with him right at the point that she's finally pushed him too far.

The detective forces herself to her feet.

"Kate?"

"Thank you Dr. Burke. Thank you for helping me see this his way. I think I need to go and find him now – the longer this festers between us the worse the outcome is going to be. I owe him a huge apology – I need to tell him I realize what I've done."

The shrinks nods, half smiles. "He needs more than that Kate – he needs to know he's not alone in how he feels – or he will shut you out."

Kate looks thoughtful. "I love him so much. But will he ever believe that now?"

"The only person who can answer that for you is Castle, Kate."

The detective turns for the door; her hand is turning the doorknob when Dr. Burke's voice startles her.

"Kate."

The cop turns back into the room. "What?"

"You say he's been working on your mother's case for you – because if you touch it – whoever tried to kill you has promised to try again?"

The detective nods.

"So it's safe to assume he's now the one facing that possible fate?"

Oh God. Oh God.

Mutely she nods.

"He'll listen then when you go to him – he won't want too – but he will." Dr. Burke tells her.

"How do know?" She asks.

"Because there are differing degrees of love Kate – and he has the kind a person's very calmly and very consciously willing to die for."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Once again it's a 'group thanks' I'm afraid my friends - but I hope all of you who have been so kind and reviewed, will know that I read and smiled and loved that you loved the story so far. And that I will get around to thanking you all personally just as soon as I can.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five:<strong> Here is the News.

* * *

><p>The only place Kate can think to start looking for him is back at the loft. She's been trying his cell phone periodically since he walked out last night – maybe twenty attempts now – but it goes directly to voice mail and the sound of his voice – so cheerful – so normal – so Castle, it's just breaking her heart at this point and clearly he isn't going to answer her.<p>

But he has to go home at some point right?

After all, he didn't take anything with him when he left . . . and then there's Alexis to consider in this - Castle would never just disappear on her.

So the loft it is.

Beckett checks her watch – it's barely 8:00 am – she can be back at the loft by 8:30 am if she hurries. She hurries.

* * *

><p>Alexis is startled by knocking on the loft's front door as she hangs up the phone with her father. The teenager's face is damp with tears, her breathing rapid – pure empathy for the pain she knows her father is in right now. Frankly Alexis is completely thrown by the turn of events – she knew <em>something<em> bad would happen when her father's partner discovered the murder board in the study – but Alexis had figured Kate's anger would burn hot and fast. It would be ugly and her father would have to do some serious groveling and explaining and then the detective would relent and things would go back to normal.

This . . . Alexis doesn't even know what to call it – this idea? This theory? This fact? It can't be a fact can it? That Kate doesn't love him. Alexis has _seen_ the two of them together – a lot more recently – and it's obvious isn't it? How they feel – how _both_ of them feel. Even if it's so far gone unspoken and been deemed 'complicated'. And yet this fight about the murder board has left her father convinced that Kate does not feel that way about him – and it's clearly tearing him apart.

And if it tears Richard Castle apart – then it tears Alexis Castle apart too. The author's daughter is well aware that she idolizes her father – doesn't mean she's blind to his faults – just means she loves him fiercely – protectively. He's a good man – a really, really good man. Loyal – compassionate – generous, and unfailingly over-protective of those he loves. A real stand-up guy once people learn to overlook the wild-child side of him that never thinks a damn thing through before it acts.

And even that side of him has seriously been tamed – because of Kate. Kate is good for him – she's really good for him and her Dad, well he just loves this woman _so_ much. Alexis can see it in his eyes every time he thinks about her – let alone talks about her – and Kate is astute, a detective – the best detective in the city according to her father – so there is no way the woman doesn't know how her partner feels. If she didn't return the sentiment – why would she string him along and let him keep following her around all these years? Why would she keep feeding the hope? Why . . . how could she be so cruel?

Alexis swallows back a new surge of tears as the knocking on the front door persists.

Wiping her face with the backs her hands she crosses from the kitchen counter to the front door, just as the knocking morphs into a furious wave of pounding. Slowing her footsteps Alexis cautiously checks the peephole – then wrenches the door wide when she sees who is waiting in the hallway on the other side.

"What have you done?" The teenager demands of her visitor brokenly. "What the hell have you done?"

* * *

><p>When the entrance to Castle's loft finally swings open, Kate is greeted by the wrong person. Expecting to see her partner – gearing herself up for the conversation they need to have, she's thrown for a loop somewhat when it's Alexis on the other side of the door.<p>

Castle's daughter is visibly upset – her cheeks are wet, and the expression on her usually smiling and lovely face is not one Kate's overly familiar with. She's seen it before though – when the teenager was ranting at her during the bank heist.

Kate tries to calm her suddenly erratic heartbeat, digging deep for a calming smile she speaks softly – ignoring the girl's question for the moment.

"Hey Alexis – is Castle home?"

"No." The word is almost spat at Kate.

The detective can feel her shoulders slump to find him still missing, but obviously Alexis knows something – she wouldn't be speaking to Kate like this if she didn't have some idea about the fight the night before.

"Can I come in?" She asks hesitantly.

The author's daughter steps back mutely, her hand still clutching the door handle, and Kate slips past in the space she's been left, her eyes surveying the apartment for any signs that her partner has been back here at all since she last saw him – she doesn't see anything to indicate that though.

Before she can turn back around to face Alexis the young woman repeats her earlier demand.

"What have you done Detective Beckett? Why is my father so upset?"

It's a good question isn't it? She doesn't know how much Alexis knows about her mother's case – or what her father has been doing – doesn't know if Alexis is aware of what her father confessed to Kate in the moments after she was shot. But what she does know is that Castle is unfailingly honest with his daughter – much as he tries to shield her from some things – the important stuff – he lays it all out for her, and Kate has always admired him for that.

She owes him that now – she owes Alexis that now, as hard as she finds it to say she needs to try.

"Because I lied to him - I lied more than once – and now I think he's taken it into his head that my feelings for him . . . well that they aren't what he thought they might be. My behavior must have seemed selfish . . . it _was _selfish and I've hurt him . . . over and over again . . . and I came here to try and figure out with him what I can do to make amends. What I can do to prove to him that I know what I did was wrong – was so wrong."

Alexis stares at Kate critically for a moment in the wake of the detective's admission. The normally immaculately pulled together woman is a visible mess. Huge dark circles line her normally beautiful eyes, and those eyes are red-rimmed from what looks like lack of sleep – and tears maybe. Alexis can't imagine the woman crying – she always seems to be made of steel, hard-edged and strong. Her hair is hanging limply in loose curls around her shoulders, and the guilt on her face is easy to see.

But if it's true that Kate doesn't love her father then Alexis doesn't want the two of them patching this up and carrying on as friends – the damage to her Dad's gentle heart will be too much – better a clean break now. So Alexis decides to cut right through the careful truth the detective is telling her and get down to what really matters here.

"Tell me the truth." She says. "And don't sugar-coat it." She adds for good measure. "Are you in love with him detective? Because my Dad worships you – he lives and breathes for you – he'd die for you – don't you know that? And unless you feel the same way about him you need to stay out of his life . . . because I won't let you hurt him anymore – do you understand? I won't watch him hold himself back for you any longer."

The teen sees an acute flash of pain dart across the older woman's face. "Alexis I'm so sorry for all the pain I've caused him – you have to believe that."

"That isn't an answer Kate. Why is it so hard for you to just tell me?" She shoots back.

The cop tenses . . . her hands in fists at her sides. "I don't know." She admits. "I guess because I'm so used now to denying it that verbalizing feels unnatural – so forgive me – I do love him Alexis."

Alexis takes a deep breath.

"But do you love him like he loves you? Or is he just your friend?"

Kate actually manages to smile. "He's my best friend – the best friend I've ever had – but that's not how I love him. Your Dad is the one who's good with words Alexis – I don't really have them to tell you how much he means to me. But he's the first thing I think of every morning – and the last thing at night. I wake up and reach out for him and then when I realize he isn't there I have this moment of sadness for another night wasted. He's so much more than I deserve – I've been broken so long – and yet when he looks at me I know it's not the broken parts he sees. I want to be with him Alexis. I want to be with him all the time – all the ways two people can be together, and I know no-one else will ever make me feel like that. He's irreplaceable Alexis – he's the most important thing in the world."

The writer's daughter looks deep into the green eyes gazing at her with such open honesty; Alexis can feel no doubts within her that her father's partner is telling her the truth. She takes a minute – let's the realization that her father's heart is safe fill her up – feels the knowledge settle within her – feels the rightness of it – the joy she knows it can bring.

"I believe you." She tells her softly. "And for what it's worth I'm glad Kate . . . I only want to see him happy."

Beckett reaches out for the girls' hand.

"So do you know where he is?" She begs.

Alexis nods.

"And are you willing to tell me?"

Alexis nods again. "He's in the Hampton's – at our beach house." She replies. "I'll give you the directions and an address."

Kate feels her heart swell with gratitude, but then something occurs to her that she should ask Alexis about before she goes after him.

"I'm grateful – but I need you to do something else for me Alexis – there's some more information that might help me to get through to him when I find him."

The teen nods, her brow furrowed quizzically. "Okay – whatever I can do to help?"

Kate swallows. "The three months Castle and I didn't speak after my shooting – the months I was recovering – I need you to tell me everything you remember about how he was during that time. And please don't think you need to spare me my feelings either – I need to hear it Alexis – I deserve to hear it - no matter how bad okay?"

Alexis smiles shyly. "Okay Kate – I'll tell you everything I can." She replies.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: 'Spoiler' warning in effect for this chapter – if you have not read Castle's novel 'Heat Rises' and you don't wish to be spoiled then skip this chapter – the final story will still make sense without it because I'll write it that way – although of course I'd rather you read this chapter and then reviewed – but enough said.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six: <strong>The Sound of Silence.

* * *

><p>"Can I get you some coffee Detective?" Alexis asks, as she heads into the kitchen, her father's partner looks decidedly shaky and even Alexis is aware of the woman's constant need for caffeine.<p>

Beckett looks uncertain – she'd kill for another cup of coffee because she's exhausted, but it occurs to her that despite her request for more information she might need to get going – doesn't Alexis have school?

"I'm not keeping you from school am I – you do have time to stop and talk to me?" She asks nervously.

Her partner's daughter nods and indicates that Kate should take a seat on one of the bar stools against the kitchen counter.

"I'm going to have coffee myself and it's already brewed so it's no trouble, and I'm only taking theoretical physics this semester . . . I kinda finished all my other credits early – when I was trying to get into Stanford." She confesses.

Beckett nods. "Yeah I'm sorry about that Alexis – I'm sure everything will all work out for you on the college front eventually." She says.

The teenager smiles as she hands the cop a large blue mug of coffee and heads to the large stainless steel refrigerator to grab some creamer. Once she's fixed her own coffee and handed the creamer to Kate, Alexis takes the stool next to the older woman and suddenly the atmosphere turns awkward – neither woman able to hold eye-contact.

"So . . . where shall I start?" The young woman asks gently, avoiding Kate's eyes by taking a long draft of her drink.

"The beginning I guess." Beckett responds quietly. "Were you here when he got back from the hospital – after he'd been allowed to visit me I mean? After I'd told him that I'd call him – when I was ready."

Alexis nods. "Yeah I was here. I remember because I made fun of him for taking such care getting dressed up to visit you."

Kate smiles at the memory – he did look really, really good that morning – until she wiped the earnestness from his handsome face with a lie. Her smiles falters as she remembers how his demeanor subtly changed, how his eyes shuttered themselves, the sparkle lost – his emotions no longer open and readable.

"Did he say anything?" She asks.

The author's daughter shakes her head. "Not much. Just that you were awake and sitting up, and how blown away he was that you were doing so well. He seemed pretty okay – I mean he was a little quiet – but you almost died Kate – it didn't seem unusual for him to be a bit withdrawn."

Beckett nods thoughtfully. "And in the days that immediately followed that?" She inquires.

"He wasn't around at all, so I didn't see anything of him. He was at the precinct from early morning until really late at night. Total cop hours – you know. He was buried in your case – he told me that much when we passed each other. I don't think he got much rest the first week or so . . . I don't think detectives Ryan and Esposito did either – the three of them were together all the time. When he did come home he just looked haunted . . . and all he would tell me was that the leads just kept drying up."

Kate takes a sip of her coffee; she can picture Castle doing this. Working the case as tirelessly as the boys – and he'd have still been waiting patiently on her at this point . . . her lack of contact probably wasn't worrying him yet. She's about to ask for more, but Alexis beats her to it.

"He was okay at first Kate – really. I mean I'd see him lost in thought sometimes, staring off into space with a troubled look on his face, but when I asked him how you were doing and he said you hadn't called yet – the first couple of weeks he handled it fine."

Beckett swallows. "But as time went on . . . "

"He became very obsessive." The teenager tells her.

Kate looks surprised. "He did?"

Alexis nods. "After a month had gone by and the case had really dead-ended, your new Captain pulled Ryan and Esposito back – made them work fresh investigations and she didn't like Dad being there. That's when Dad really started to change. He worked with them as much as he could, but that's when he created the murder board you found in his study. That's when your silence really began to weigh on him – when he was left alone – when he was the only one working on the case full-time. We couldn't pull him away from it – he became blinkered . . . it was all he had of you at that time and so he held on tight."

"Did he mention my lack of contact at all – or did you just know he hadn't heard from me?" Kate asks.

"Both." The writer's daughter responds. "I would ask him how you were – and his face would just go blank. He'd be very still, and it would always take him time to answer. Dad thought he was fooling us – Gram and me I mean – but we can both read him – the blank poker face is just another tell. He was miserable and afraid we would see it on his face. He was still because it was painful – I mean for him it was physically painful when we mentioned you and he wasn't prepared – and the time to answer – he didn't trust his voice anymore than he trusted his face. He was so careful Kate – he didn't want us to know he was hurt by your silence – he wanted us to think everything was normal – and that he was fine."

Beckett takes a few deep breaths to steady herself. She can so _see _him doing all of this – absolutely all of it, none of it comes as a shock. She even recognizes the patterns because she's seen him use the same tactics on her a few times. The artfully controlled expression, the weirdly still posture – the pause in answering . . . and what hurts is that she's seen these recently. So much has piled up between them when she wasn't looking – while she focused on trying to tear down her walls and she didn't notice that he'd unwillingly learned to construct his own.

"What else?" She presses. "We've covered that first month – did it get worse than that?"

One look at her companion and Kate already has her answer. Storm clouds have gathered in the teenager's blue eyes, the memories bringing forth the anger within her again. Whatever happened next must have been tough for the kid to watch. Kate reaches out for the girl's hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

"It's okay to be mad at me. I'm mad at me. I'm probably a lot madder at me than you are – so you can tell me Alexis. I swear I won't try to defend it because it's indefensible – that silence, I know that."

Alexis nods, and Kate senses that tightly restrained rage dissipate a little.

"You have to promise me that you won't tell my Dad any of what I'm about to tell you Kate."

The cop shakes her head. "I don't want to lie to him again . . . isn't it better that everything just comes out now?" She asks.

Castle's daughter shakes her head. "You don't understand." She protests. "I'm asking you to protect me – I snooped and if Dad knew . . . it was wrong but I was so worried about him and I invaded his privacy when I shouldn't – it's not the right time for me to tell him, it may never be the right time but especially not now Kate – not when he's already so upset." She confesses.

The plea in the girl's vivid eyes seals the deal for Kate.

"I promise Alexis. I won't betray the confidence."

The red-head's shoulders relax a little and she continues.

"After that first month and the creation of the murder board, Dad started to spend a lot more time here in his office than at the precinct. I mean he still went in, but only after he'd gotten a phone call from either Ryan or Esposito. I got the impression they called him to let him know the coast was clear and that the new Captain wasn't around."

Kate's lips quirk at this – it sounds exactly right. "Go on."

"Anyway, he'd hole up in his office for hours – and he was writing often – I thought it was edits for his book – and I'm sure that accounts for some of it – but there was a strange pattern to it. When he's writing a story he's always happy – there's always a light, a contentment in his eyes – and I could see that whatever he was writing this time it was having the reverse affect . . . it was making him sad. I don't know that I can explain what prompted me to check his computer except to say that I've been around my father when he's writing my whole life – and something was up. And I blamed you Kate – I did – because it looked like you'd taken his joy in writing away."

Nodding sympathetically – because Alexis is clearly distressed, Kate says, "So you did some investigating of your own. What did you find?" She asks gently.

"He was writing emails to you."

The detective's eyes widen in surprise. "I didn't get . . . I mean that's not possible Alexis, we didn't have any communication for those three months – that's the problem."

"I didn't say he sent them." The girl responds. "After all Kate, you told him _you'd_ call – so Dad knew sending them would be against the rules and for once in his life he was trying to play by the rules. He was trying to do what _you_ wanted." Castle's daughter replies.

"Oh." Yeah Kate can see why Alexis does not want her father to know about this – but still she has to ask. "You read them . . . what did they say?"

Alexis blows out a breath. She's done nothing since she read them but try to forget everything they said – and yet sometimes the more you try to bury a memory the more vivid your recall becomes. But how does she summarize what she learned?

"He asked you for forgiveness a lot." She says, feeling her eyes fill up.

Kate gasps. "What? What on earth for?"

"For getting you shot. For keeping you from Captain Montgomery's side the night he died. For what he said about your relationships – for accusing you of hiding in them. For making you shoot someone called 'Coonan'. For not being fast enough to take the bullet for you. For not being able to find the shooter."

Kate shakes her head. "That's crazy."

Alexis nods her agreement. "But you must know he still feels responsible for all of it – feels like he's the one that started the dominoes falling when he poked into your mother's case the first time."

Kate shakes her head again. "I didn't – I have never blamed him – I could never blame him." She says. "What else did they say?"

"Just that he loved you. Email after email, draft after draft just sitting there. I love you Kate. Please call me Kate. I miss you Kate. Please talk to me Kate. I need you Kate. Over and over – just the same things . . . he wasn't sending them but it was like he couldn't stop writing them, like he had to get it out."

Beckett swallows back the rising sea of her emotions – even as she is held silent by them.

"Three weeks before you turned up again he stopped." Alexis confesses.

Kate's eyes snap to the teenagers face. "So you checked?" She asks.

The girl nods. "I couldn't stop myself when he changed the ending of the book – it was so sudden it freaked me out – so yeah, I kept checking."

"He did what?" The cop asks.

Alexis nods at the bookshelf containing Castle's personal copies of his novels. Kate can see the spine of 'Heat Rises' clearly. "He re-wrote the ending of the book just as it was going to print. Gina almost killed him she was so angry, but he wouldn't budge."

Somehow that's not hard for Beckett to imagine.

"What happens in the original version?" She asks softly.

"Rook takes the bullet for Nikki but he's fine. I mean he's injured, but he's okay. So I mean it wasn't much of a change – but it was telling you know?" Alexis answers.

Kate thinks telling is a serious understatement. It's massively revealing. She'd cut him out of her life and he had no idea where he stood – so he wrote the fictionalized version of himself an uncertain future . . . Oh Castle. When she'd read it the first time she'd just assumed it was a hook for the next novel – a classic cliffhanger – now she sees it for what it really is – a plea for an answer.

And God help her he thinks now he has it and he's got it all wrong.

Kate jumps up off the stool – suddenly she needs to be on the road – she grabs the paper with the Castle's Hampton's address and directions and then she grabs her partner's daughter to her – hugging hard.

"Thank you. Thank you so much Alexis. I promise you I _will_ make it right with him – I won't deny and I won't hide and I'll tell him. I'll tell him what he needs to hear." She says determinedly. "Just say a prayer that he's willing to forgive me okay." She adds in a broken whisper.

Alexis manages a weak smile. "Okay detective. But I don't know why you think you'll need it?" She says, before she notices the terrified fear in the cop's eyes.

"Just promise to pray Alexis - because I will die without him." Kate says honestly, before she turns and vanishes out the door.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven:** Shake the Heavens & Crack the Sky

* * *

><p>By noon the previously sunny and clear winter's morning has taken a decided turn for the unpredictable. Dark menacing clouds began to gather on the horizon not long after Castle hung up the phone with Alexis – and now they've rolled inland and taken up residence over the beach.<p>

The air has gone from a fresh, light and cold breeze to a humid wind that's gaining in strength by the minute. A storm is coming – he can feel it and the writer within him wonders fancifully when it was exactly, that the weather decided to hook up with his moods.

The huge beachfront house has grown cold, or maybe it's only now that he's noticing it, so Castle moves into the great room and turns on the gigantic gas fireplace before he parks himself on a cushion in front of it. Mentally and physically exhausted, he sits his hands twisting idly in his lap and for the first time in a very long time he contemplates the thought of writing it out, and finds that thought – unnerving.

It's his way normally. That whatever befalls him he takes it, and he uses it and it works itself into written words so that he can just 'write it out'. He deals with – copes with - his emotions that way, whether its dealing with loss by killing someone off in a book and then having his protagonist deal with it, or whether it's just been a bad day and he has Nikki kick a bad guy's ass for seven paragraphs. But today he just . . . he just cannot do that. He cannot even comprehend doing it because all the words in his head lead him down a path were he ends this. Ends this crippling torment that his partnership with Beckett has become now – and this is not a reality he's sure he's ready to face yet.

'Always' is what he'd committed too and that was regardless of whether she could ever love him – and he isn't ready to let her make a liar out of him – not . . . not yet.

He's still wishing, praying – begging even for another way – even though for the life of him he simply can't see it right now.

All the author can see is this deadly approaching storm – and the wreckage after.

Checking his watch Castle sighs heavily – really? Is it really only halfway through the day? He aches all over from punishing his body with that brutal run this morning. There's no food in his system – and yet his appetite is gone, and even though it's barely past midday his liquor cabinet is starting to look really good to him. He stares at it for a long moment and then gives up any pretense that he isn't longing for a stiff drink – because besides - who's here to judge him anyway?

Grimacing as he forces himself to his feet, Castle begins to wish he'd stretched properly before _and_ after his run – even as he perversely welcomes any pain that isn't situated in the vicinity of his heart. Grunting softly in discomfort, he forces himself to stretch now – as uncomfortable as it is, and once he's managed to loosen himself up a little he proceeds to procure the now eagerly anticipated scotch.

But as he settles himself back in front of the fire, nursing the glass of alcohol gratefully as it gives his hands something to do – Castle stares into the flames and allows himself for now, to wonder bitterly if this mess that his life has become will ever end?

* * *

><p>By the time Kate is approaching Exit 70 on the I-495, ready to join NY-27 East – the last stretch of her journey to the Hamptons; she's become so nervous that her hands are literally trembling on the steering wheel of her Crown Vic. Everything Alexis has told her, everything that Dr. Burke has made her face, the totality of it's been going round and around in her head this entire drive, as the level of fear she's dealing with also ratchets up and up.<p>

She keeps trying to start the conversation with Castle in her mind – she's even been filling the car with her side of it – but she can never seem to get very far past "I'm sorry Rick . . . I'm _so_ sorry." And lame apologies, no matter how sincere are simply not going to reach him – or move him - somewhere inside Beckett can just feel this.

The cop feels like a fraud for even driving out here like this – because it just seems . . . well even _this_ feels selfish because Castle clearly left because he needed space. And here she is high-tailing after him because she can't just sit and wait – which is rich isn't it? After her three month absence she can't even give to him the courtesy of twenty four hours? She has to track him down and force him into another confrontation? And yet the detective knows she isn't capable of turning this car around. She isn't going to let her deception fester between them – because she can't, she just can't risk him having any time to get over her; to get over them – of his dream of 'them'. She cannot allow him to relegate them to the past.

Somehow Kate knows – she really _knows_ deep down inside her, in a place that cannot be touched by doubts, that if she does not do this now. If she does not chase him down and make him listen – make him understand that he is _everything_ to her – then she will lose him because of her lies. And even the thought of losing him is – unthinkable – unbearable – and if ever Castle deserved to hear anything from her then he deserves to know that.

But even the weather is changing the closer Kate approaches him. Rain has started to beat down against the windshield, the wind off the Atlantic Ocean has picked up and is now howling around the car and inside Kate fights back, fights down the rising tide of desperation within her.

Twenty minutes later and Kate gets soaked at a gas station as she tries to orient herself on the outskirts of this insanely wealthy suburb. Sprawling seaside residences are everywhere and the detective knows she's taken a wrong turn somewhere and wishes for the hundredth time in the space of five minutes that her damn car had a GPS.

The gas station attendant – 'Mike' - is at first incredibly unhelpful. He takes a cursory glance at the address Alexis has scrawled with vague directions on a scrap of notebook paper – and then takes it upon himself to protect his wealthy - and most likely famous – patrons by assuming Kate is some crazy-stalker trying to locate the home of her favorite celebrity. Only when she pulls out her badge and slaps it on the counter in front of him – followed by pulling back her jacket to indicate her gun does he look properly at her destination and decide to be of assistance.

Ten minutes after that and Kate skids her vehicle to an unsteady stop in the now torrential rain, in front of a pair of ornate black gates concealing the entrance to a curved driveway. The number attached to the sturdy brickwork wall surrounding the property tells her she's reached her journey's end, and Kate exits the car for another soaking as she stumbles up to the keypad set into the right hand wall.

Pushing her hopelessly wet hair back off of her beautiful face the cop scans the panel looking for a way to buzz the house – she raises her finger to push when it occurs to her that Castle might not let her in.

What if he just refuses to answer the buzzer? What if he doesn't even hear it? It's the middle of the day and with this insane weather she can't think he'd be any place but inside – but what if this is as close as he's going to let her come?

Putting herself in his shoes – she wouldn't blame him.

Indecision wars within her as she scans the wall and then the gates, and figures she can easily scale them if she has too. There is nowhere close to legally park her vehicle, but if it gets towed does she really care? Then she remembers the string of numbers Alexis wrote on the rear of the paper scrap – and Kate turns from the panel to race back to her car. Retrieving the paper she approaches the panel for the second time, squinting in the fading light as the clouds darken the day still further, Kate punches in the five digit sequence – 64554 – and to her enormous relief the large black gates begin to swing open.

She slips on her way back to the vehicle, wrenching her left ankle painfully. Dizzy she leans against it to catch her breath a moment, then steps carefully around to the driver's door and gets herself back behind the wheel.

She puts the Crown Vic back into drive and nudges the car forward – through the gates and onto the winding driveway that lies beyond. Beckett isn't sure _what_ she was expecting of something Alexis described only as a 'beach-house', but this is not it. Clearing the first bend she discovers huge hedges rising up each side of the car and obscuring the house until she clears the second bend and then the end of the driveway comes into sight.

It finishes in a large turning circle in front of a sprawling house, and Kate instantly recognizes her partners SUV parked at a weird angle at the foot of the buildings steps.

She pulls her car alongside his and turning the Crown Vic's engine off, Beckett looks up at the house before her more than a little bit stunned.

Even in the poor light, even through the pouring rain the property is impressive. Two storeys of classic white all-American architecture - it must have cost Castle a small fortune. She swallows suddenly around a large lump in her throat. Sometimes she easily forgets just how wealthy he really is – okay a lot of the time she forgets just how wealthy he is; because that's so much easier than analyzing why a handsome, charming multi-millionaire follows her around on a daily basis – risking his life fairly regularly in the process.

It slaps her in the face of all this, that Castle truly doesn't _need _to do it. Castle could have _any_ woman he wants and yet he chose her. With all her baggage and all her walls, with all that she's pushed him away and used relationships with other men to keep him at arms length – time and again he chooses her when she's given him almost nothing back.

It's so beyond time for him to know that she chooses him too – that she'll always choose him - that she feels just like he does – that she'd die for him.

Lightening illuminates the sky suddenly and Beckett jumps in her seat startled. Thunder crashes barely two seconds later, and Kate exits the car suddenly eager to get in out of the rain. Her legs feel rubbery beneath her as she has to force herself up the steps to the front door, ducking under the overhanging porch she shivers in her too-light leather jacket and searches for a door bell – or a knocker or something. Finding the small brass button for a bell she pushes it and listens to see if she can hear the thing over the sound of the storm – she can't.

The detective waits a minute and then pushes the button again. Another minute, another bell push . . . she's just beginning to think she'll have to walk the perimeter of the house for another way in when the door opens slowly in front of her.

* * *

><p>The flash of lightening lighting up the living room yanks the author from his staring match with the flames in the fireplace. The storm has arrived then he thinks as he waits only a second more for the clap of thunder to show up. Blowing out a breath Castle takes a swig of his scotch and then heaves himself to his feet once more – maybe he'll kill some time and not have to think if he goes back to his room – he can watch the lightening light up the ocean from there.<p>

He's at the foot of the staircase when the front door bell sounds – it startles him so badly the glass of scotch slips from his fingers and crashes onto the hardwood floor. Caught between wanting to cleaning up the spill - and wondering how in the hell someone has made it to his front door without buzzing the house from the main gate – he has a moments indecision before he decides the spill comes first.

If some crazy fan has hopped his gate they can wait a moment – not that this would be the first time but in this weather and at this time of year?

The doorbell continues to chime – with respectful intervals between each one. Still by the time he's actually ready to open the door he's graduated from startled to somewhat annoyed – until he checks the peephole and all emotion just drains right out him.

It's Kate.

Oh my God – he thinks. _It's Kate._

Just the one glance and he can see she's soaked to the skin – his keen eye already telling him she's wearing the same clothes she was the prior night. What in the hell is she doing here? How the hell did she find him? But that's a stupid question isn't it – because that's what she does – find people – why would finding him be any different?

_The question is why?_

Castle closes his eyes and it hits him that right now, right this moment he just doesn't care. He doesn't want to see her. He doesn't want to fight with her. He just wants to wallow and be alone and try to salvage what dignity he can before he figures out what the hell he's supposed to do next.

But she can't give him that apparently. And then suddenly he's not drained he's just mad. No he's furious – and then he's opening the door.

* * *

><p>Kate knew he wouldn't be happy to see her, but the look on his face is worse than she expected. The tension in her partner's jaw is just screaming at her to turn around and get the hell out, but he just stares her down and waits for her to speak.<p>

It's a real problem that she doesn't have a clue what to say.

"Hi." Is all she manages, and then lightening fills the sky and thunder the air again.

They stare at each other until the noise rolls away and then before she can say anything else Castle beats her to it.

"Turn around and go away." He says calmly; far too calmly considering the fury raging in his shuttered blue eyes.

"Castle I . . . "She doesn't get any further.

"NO. Turn around and walk away Beckett. Right now that's all I'm going to say." He says, the volume on his voice rising, the prior calmness beginning to disappear.

"Rick _please_ just listen . . . "She begs.

"GO AWAY!" He's yelling now – there's pain in his voice.

Kate trembles and her brain stutters, and she tries to think through a sudden creeping fogginess, tries to think of anything to say that will force him to listen to her, but the fog is becoming blackness and she feels herself tilt, her legs giving.

All she registers before she knows nothing is that strong arms manage to catch her.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I will get around to responding to all of you who have reviewed – you guys have been so supportive that it's the very least I can do in return. Until I manage that though – here is your next update, I figure you rather have that anyway.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight: <strong>Love Bites

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><p>His reflexes kick in automatically when Kate's eyes glaze over and then roll back in her head; she pitches sideways, her long legs folding beneath her and its pure instinct that has his arms reach out and catch her before she has the chance to tumble down the stairs behind her.<p>

It's also instinct that hauls her against his chest, cradling her, protecting her as his already elevated heart-rate kicks up another notch in panic – wondering what's wrong with her because it's not like bad-ass Kate Beckett to faint.

Castle looks down at her perfect pale face, the crescent of her dark lashes stark against her white skin, and he cannot contain the shudder that ripples through his large frame. It's just too much like that morning in the cemetery for him – and even though he's livid with her right now he cannot resist his need to pull her even more tightly against him – until he can _feel _her heat beating against his chest as her soaking clothes render the entire front of him dripping wet also.

The author sighs. Clearly as strongly as he does not want her here, he's not going to be getting rid of her right now. Between the storm and now her collapse it's not safe for her to be driving, so pushing aside his feelings he does the only thing he can do – he scoops his partner up into his arms and carries her into the house. In the entrance way he stops and debates – should he put her to bed or should he put her in front of the fire?

The fire instantly wins – he isn't going anywhere near a bedroom with Kate in his arms – just the thought of it and his heart is twisting painfully.

He shifts his hold on her to make sure he has her securely, and then Castle heads back towards the living room and the fireplace, the run-taxed muscles in his shoulders and legs screaming a violent protest the entire way. It's not like Kate weighs a whole lot, but she's definitely a dead-weight right now and he was hurting before she showed up – 'and in more ways than one' his brain supplies unhelpfully.

Shaking the thought off, he lowers her as slowly as he can to the floor in front of the flames, making sure her head hits the pillow he was sitting on when she arrived. She's still out of it – her breathing shallow, but he's pretty sure this is just the combined result of no food – lack of sleep – and emotional distress. He knows too well how she operates, and he hasn't been there the last day to make her put food in her stomach or go to bed at all – Castle can practically guarantee she's just been running on fumes and maybe coffee the whole time. Pushing himself once more to his feet, he leaves her safely by the fire to warm up, and heads upstairs to grab some towels to dry her off.

When he returns a few minutes later she still hasn't moved, so Castle kneels down next to her and shifts her head carefully from the pillow to his lap and a waiting dry towel. He has to fight the need to flee the entire time. Her presence in this house feels absolutely overwhelming – he's not mentally prepared to see her – let alone talk to her and yet fate has decreed that his readiness is a moot point. He tries to just wipe his mind clean as he towels off the soaking, tangled mass of her hair – focus only on the task he tells himself, not on how soft her hair is or the faded scent of yesterdays perfume. Swallowing back every emotion that tries to crawl up his throat he's beyond relieved when her eyes finally open – her gaze lucid and finding his almost at once.

Castle tries to find something to say but he's got nothing – his hands still though and they return to his sides, as gently as he can he shifts out from beneath her – he figures she can dry her own hair now.

He can feel her eyes on him as he gets first to his knees and then stands, needing to put some distance between them, he retreats to his couch – seating himself before he dares to meet her eyes again.

Kate sits up slowly, she stares at him and he can see words trying to form themselves on her lips – he waits but in the end she gives up her initial attempt to talk and instead settles on looking around her – taking the house in.

"It's beautiful." She manages finally, once her eyes have scanned the entire place three – maybe four times.

The author takes a shallow breath – the house at least he can probably manage to discuss.

"Thank you." However is all actually he gets out.

"It's so big." She says next, before she starts rambling. "I mean Alexis told me it was a beach house, I don't know what I thought that meant, but this place is just . . . I mean it's a mansion Castle . . . an honest to God mansion and I don't think I want to know what this place cost . . . but it was a serious amount of money I bet . . . "

The sound of her voice muttering such inane drivel is too much. Castle doesn't _want_ to talk to her about anything, but it does appear that he's reached his threshold with her for talking _around_ stuff. They're too good at that – pushing the important stuff to the side and letting a little subtext do all the work while they ignore not just elephants in the room but lions, tigers and bears as well. He's done . . . he's done with it now.

His voice sounds harsh to his ears when he speaks, but he's just grateful it's level and clear.

"Beckett – stop!"

Kate stops mid-sentence and stares at him, biting her lip at his tone.

"I'm not ready to talk about this." He says. "I'm not ready to even be in the same room as you right now – you shouldn't have come here."

Unable to remain seated he bolts to his feet and retreats to the other side of the couch, needing the security of some kind of barrier between them. When the author looks back at her he can almost feel her emotions for her – they play across the canvas of her face like a silent movie.

He can read them all as he watches; she seems to get stuck on despair.

Ordinarily it would tear him in two to see Kate struggling with this amount of pain and guilt, but he's so far gone in his own world of hurt that in the moment he's got no empathy to spare.

"Castle . . . if you'll just listen . . . I'm so sorry. I lied to you and I hurt you . . . "

He doesn't let her get any further.

"I _said _I'm not ready to talk about it – why can't you understand that? How come everything always has to be _your_ way and on _your _timetable huh? You tell me you need some time and I turn myself inside out for months to comply Beckett – but you . . . you just barge in here and . . . dammit Beckett you are _so _out of line."

He watches her mouth open and close as her eyes fill up with tears and sheer frustration rips through him. The author turns blindly for the wall his fist raised – and then he just lets it fly, his hand connecting with the drywall viciously as he punches clean through it. Pain shoots down his arm, blood drips down his wrist and his forehead bangs into the same wall as he slumps against it. Why can't she just leave him alone? Why can't she just give him even a moment's peace?

* * *

><p>Kate stares at her partner's slumped shoulders and wishes the ground beneath her would just open up and swallow her. Her insides feel scrambled, every emotion jumbled and none of them clear. This is a side of her partner she's never seen and she can't seem to grasp hold of way to deal with it; which leaves her shivering in wet clothes in the middle of this gorgeous room, as the man before her punches a hole in the wall of his home.<p>

Lightening flashes again. The storm outside is now sitting right on top of the house because the boom of thunder that echoes around them sounds the same instant the room is illuminated. To Kate it's nothing compared to the far worse one raging in this room – raging inside Castle.

The detective stands rooted to the spot, completely at a loss what to do, but then he lets out a small, just a small moan of pain and she finds she can't not go to him, her feet are suddenly moving her closer all by themselves.

She get's within a foot before the wave of determination that carried her here deserts her. There is a quaver in her voice when she speaks. "Castle . . . let me see."

He shakes his head but doesn't reply – so she tries again.

'Rick . . . you're bleeding. Let me see – _please._"

Her partner shakes his head again. "It's nothing – leave me be." He murmurs bitterly, still turned away from her, his head against the wall.

Stubborn man.

Kate tentatively steps that final foot closer, her hand is reaching for his shoulder to try and turn him to face her when he wheels away from her touch before she can get close enough to make contact.

"Don't." He warns her, stepping back until there is distance of at least ten feet between them. Kate drops her outstretched arm back to her side helplessly, and the tears that had filled her eyes spill over – she cannot stop them.

* * *

><p>Adrenaline is coursing through his body, and thank God because his whole right arm is now throbbing and he knows it'll only get worse once the hormone wears off. Damn it. Damn her. He really doesn't care about the wall though.<p>

He senses her behind him, feels her reaching out and his body revolts – she mustn't touch him – he doesn't think he could stand it – or control his reaction. She'd find herself pinned beneath him and he's not certain he could be held responsible for what he might do. He moves away until ten feet separate them and he can actually breathe again.

"Don't." He warns her and thankfully for once his partner listens to him and stays where she is. Her outstretched hand, the one that came too close, falls slowly back to her side, her face contorts in agony, tears spill down her cheeks and a tiny part of him gives in – begs the rest of him to go easy – on both of them.

The author closes his eyes to block her out for a moment and comes to a decision, because it's not like they can escape each other right now. At least not until the storm has blown itself out – not until Kate has eaten something and he can kick her out with a clear conscience. Because despite his anger, and regardless of what she's done or whether this is the end of them – the inescapable truth is that he loves her.

Desperately.

Illogically – maybe.

Eternally – definitely, because there is not a damn thing he can do about it and no way that his feelings are going to change.

He sees her this upset, and he wants to make it better – even though he can't. Even though he knows she deserves to suffer through this with him – she did it to him after all.

But the impulse is still there and fighting against it requires a little more than he can give.

So he's going to give himself a break – even if that means giving her a break.

He opens his eyes again and finds Beckett's gaze has dropped down to stare at his floor. She looks so helpless and so tired – he takes a breath to clear his head and then he says,

"When was the last time you ate – or slept?"

The cop looks up startled.

"I . . . I don't remember when I ate last . . . sleep, not last night but the night before." She answers very quietly.

Castle nods to himself – pretty much what he'd thought then.

"I'm going to go and clean up." He says, indicating his increasingly bloody right hand. "The kitchen is that way – go and eat something Beckett – the fridge is always kept stocked with basics."

He turns to head upstairs but her voice stalls him.

"Castle - Are you coming back down?" God - he really hates that her voice sounds so small – it's really uncomfortable. He wants to say he doesn't know – but if he doesn't return downstairs how can he be sure she eats? He could learn to hate himself for caring – but still . . . he'll give her this.

"Yeah – I guess." He tells her – although he doesn't bother to look back in her direction, he just starts for the stairs again, and the temporary sanctuary of his room.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Two things. How amazing was the Blue Butterfly! Thanks again for the amazing support each of you has given this story.  
><strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter Nine: <strong>Love Bleeds

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><p>She desperately wants to go after him as he walks away from her without looking back. His broad shoulders are slumped, his whole body is radiating tension – and God how badly does she want to soothe it away? How badly does she want to be the one to care for his hand – but she doesn't have that right at this moment – so Kate forces herself to swallow the hurt. He disappears around the corner of the room, and she's left with the image of his blood dripping down his hand, small splashes falling unnoticed by him onto the dark hardwood floor. The picture makes her sick to her stomach.<p>

Kate closes her eyes at the wave of nausea, she's seen blood before for God's sake – hazard of her job – she's even seen his blood before – but for some reason this time it's just hitting her really hard; a complete punch to her gut.

The detective breathes slowly through her nose, wills her stomach to stop rolling, but it's just that she's here because of all the hurt she's inflicted upon him – and even now she's heaping still more.

She forces herself to turn around and head in the direction her partner indicated – to go in search of his kitchen. He's right – she's woozy and running on nothing – she should eat something even though she doesn't want too. Maybe it'll give her the strength to deal with it if he forces her to leave once the storm has blown over. She's beginning to despair that Castle is unwilling to give her any opening right now to explain. Every time she opens her mouth to beg for forgiveness he just shuts her down – hard. And this is not like him – her partner is under usual circumstances a hugely reasonable man. Gentle. Kind. Generous.

She misses him.

Beckett locates the kitchen easily. Large and functional it's a welcoming room with warm terracotta tiles everywhere and white-washed wooden cupboards. The ankle she wrenched when she slipped earlier has started to throb with each step she takes, so instead of heading immediately for the stainless steel fridge, the cop heads for the central island instead, and a stool. With a small sigh of relief she hitches herself onto the closest one and buries her head in her hands. Tremors rack her frame – whether from her wet clothing or from the effort it's costing her to control her tears she cannot say. But as the storm picks up further outside the house, escalating along with her desperation - Kate allows the noise of storm to mask her sobs, she stops fighting them back and just lets them flow.

* * *

><p>Castle examines the damage he's inflicted to his right hand clinically, after he's run it under the tap in his bathroom to clean away the blood. All of his knuckles are a mess, bloodied, split and already swelling – they badly need ice. He experimentally stretches the hand out, flexing it a couple of times, thankful when he can move it without enormous discomfort. At least this is good he thinks, because he broke several bones in this hand the last time - punching out Hal Lockwood - and his six week rehab was difficult at best.<p>

Still, the author can tell this will take some time to heal and he shakes his head in frustration at his own stupidity. Letting her get to him like this is not going to do him any good, so when he returns downstairs he needs to have a much better grip on his anger. He catches sight of his reflection in the mirror above the double sink and finds himself flinching at the expression he sees there on his face. And God he looks old – older than his forty years he thinks – as he wonders when that happened?

Worn out and used up the man staring back at him looks beaten – scared. Scanning his own features slowly, Castle looks for any remaining signs of the fun-loving, light-hearted, almost innocent he used to be, and sighs heavily when he cannot find that person in the face he sees before him now. The man in the mirror is a stranger. His once vivid blue-eyes look grey and lifeless - cold. There are grim lines that parallel his mouth, creases around his eyes that are no longer borne of laughter, and his mouth seems thinner – like he's forgotten how to smile. It's depressing. It's so depressing. It's enough to make him want to just crawl back into his bed and sleep.

But that's not an answer or even a possibility because Kate Beckett is downstairs. Harsh realities that need facing are downstairs, and Castle is suddenly determined to promise himself one thing – just one. The author stares at his reflection in the mirror once more – he takes a long hard look at the man he sees there and he makes that man a vow. This tiptoeing, egg-shell walking, overly-passive man that he's allowed himself to become in order to keep her – ends . . . it ends now.

If this is where they've truly reached an impasse – if they have no way forward because he loves her and she's unable to love him - then he can face it. He will face it. Because the escape he was seeking when he fled here – his delusion that he could prepare himself for that – it's gone. It disappeared the moment she arrived. Because no-one can prepare to lose someone they love the way he loves Kate. You simply cannot get ready for that – for the way your heart will die within you. For the way your days – your entire future will change. Your only options are 'delaying' or 'facing' the inevitable and facing this is the only way now to go.

Castle pulls a first-aid kit out from the linen cupboard in the corner of the bathroom, and he starts by taking care of his hand – one small step towards pulling himself back together.

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><p>Kate is actually surprised when her tears dry up after only a few minutes, but then she gives herself a mental shake and berates herself viciously for even the temporary indulgence of tears. This cannot be about her – she has no right to this pain - this is all about him and she'd do well to remember that. So as bad as she's feeling in this moment – when he's the one shutting her out – it's nothing, nothing at all compared to what she did to him.<p>

She has to focus dammit. Focus Kate! She has to keep clear in her sights what she came all the way here to do – namely find some way to reach him. Some way to at least begin to make it up to him; there has to be some way to express the depth of her sorrow for the pain she knows she's caused him.

And yet for hours and hours now she's been trying to find the magic words and still the stupid stubborn things won't come. Still everything that comes out of her mouth has no impact and consists of apologies that sound hollow to her own ears. How is she supposed to reach out to him when everything she can think of to say sounds like excuses?

Sorry doesn't cut it – sorry just doesn't count.

So where does that leave her? When Castle eventually comes back down, and she has faith that he will – if he's still set on not talking about this, what does she do then?

She's afraid that she can already guess his current plan. Feed her. Make her stay the night in some beautiful room all alone in an empty bed. Make her leave in the morning. Make her promise to stay away. Come back into her life when he's figured out how to bury his heart so deep she'll never touch it again – or never come back into her life at all.

Oh yeah, Kate can guess the plan. The problems all lie in foiling it. If all her words and protests and lame apologies fall on deaf ears as he resolutely shuts her down, then anything she tries to say better hit the mark dead-on first time.

And really there are only three little words that can possibly do that. And though she's admitted them – to herself, to Dr. Burke, hell even to Alexis, admitting them to Castle still truly terrifies her. Because there is no way back from those words – there is only forward motion when the safety of 'enough-for-now', of more than friends but less than lovers is gone.

It's not like she doesn't know she's been holding them on the edge of the cliff for so long now that the drop has grown to mind-numbing proportions if they fall instead of fly.

And dear God, Kate wants them to fly. She needs them to fly. Because in the end the he is the only one she could ever really fly with. All this emotion, the vastness of this love - it's all his – it belongs to him – it's because of him, and all the amazing, incredible things he is. So there is no more time to be afraid, no more time to find words she'll never have to convey regrets for things she cannot change. All that remains is those three little words – and the finding the guts to simply say them.

Breathe. Just breathe Kate she tells herself. And the courage will come.

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><p>Knuckles strapped up securely, Castle realizes its past time he returned downstairs. While he's still unsure how this conversation is going to go, each step he takes down the staircase he nevertheless reclaims another piece of his missing dignity. Running away was clearly a mistake – he sees that now. A misguided attempt to delay an inevitable conversation because he was too afraid his heart might shatter completely during it. And even though he's still deathly afraid that's still exactly what will happen – that she's about to break him completely – in the end he's certain he'd rather go out like a man than a mouse.<p>

The author crosses the entrance way and heads back through the great room towards the kitchen, he doesn't make it all the way there because it seems Beckett is heading to find him. They stand either side of the fireplace staring at each other for long silent moments, each of them clearly drinking the other in, but at a loss for what to say – and then in typical fashion for them one starts and the other finishes.

"Kate I think I need to face the fact that things just aren't going to be the way I've dreamed about between us . . . "

"Rick . . . you need to let me say this - I'm in love with you."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: So yeah – thanks again all of you – I'm still hoping to start IM'ing you guys some proper and individual thanks, but really – I do appreciate all your comments, good and bad.**

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><p><strong>Chapter Ten: <strong>Before it's too Late.

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><p><em>Rick . . . you need to let me say this – I'm in love with you.<em>

It's barely a nano-second after she utters the word 'you' that Mother Nature once more gets in on the action. There is a brilliant flash of lightening that washes through the entire room – the same instant the boom of the thunder sounds. A noise so loud each of them instinctively ducks, then catching themselves - for a fleeting moment they share a wry grin and it's just like old times, and then as the sound lumbers away – silence, but for the heavy patter of the rain and both their expressions shutter.

Kate feels the relief sweeping through her that she's managed to finally say it – the words, 'I' 'Love' and 'You' in the same sentence and to her partner's face. She waits for him to either continue on with what he was about to say, or to acknowledge what she's said to him. Hoping desperately that she has made an impact she scans his face ardently, willing his expression to give her some small clue – some insight into what the hell is going on in that head of his. The moment stretches and he gives nothing away, says nothing, just stands motionless his thoughts unreadable.

The waiting becomes too much. Her heart is hammering within her; she can't take a proper breath for the tightness suddenly resident in her chest – finally the cop breaks.

"Castle . . . please – say something."

She doesn't know whether it's the sudden sound of her voice or the pleading quality evident in her tone, but she can see him shake his head slightly, and then finally he speaks.

"I'm sorry Kate – I don't think I heard you correctly."

The detective's eyes widen in frustration, but they did kinda speak almost at the same time, so she summons her resolve and just says it again.

"I'm in love with you Castle."

The words roll of her mouth so much easier the second time, and the relief is even greater - and then suddenly she needs to say it to him again.

"I'm completely in love with you."

His eyes flare and for a moment what she sees in them is like magic, a desperate, greedy hope – his bright blue gaze swimming with love and devotion and need. Need most of all. Sharp and brilliant and resoundingly powerful and then something horrible, something black and dark – awful - rises up and wipes the magic from her view. It happens quickly, as quickly as the initial, instinctive response flamed, and Kate realizes on a sob of pure horror that it's doubt doing this to his eyes. He doesn't believe her.

So she says it again – and then again.

"I love you. I do. I love you so much." She tells him. And then she waits in agony – willing the wonder and the magic and the hope to flood his amazing eyes again, but they remain dark and lifeless. It's unbearable, so she spills her soul once more.

"It's true – it's true I swear – God please stop looking at me like that. Rick I . . . I love you. Always have. I always will."

Kate steps closer, she reaches out for him even though six feet still separate them but the doubt is like a wall, she gets closer but then it's like she can't make it the last little way.

"Stop." He says brokenly breaking her gaze and dropping his eyes to the floor. "Just stop. Don't do this to me Beckett – please don't do this to me now."

What? She wonders. What am I doing? He's supposed to be happy; this is supposed to be when all the walls between them fall away. When they cry together, they hug together, they begin to mend. Why is he shaking his head? Why does he look so sad?

"Castle . . . why is this hurting you?" She whispers to him brokenly. "It's supposed to make you happy."

* * *

><p>His gaze snaps back to hers then. His posture straightens, his features contort with contempt, his hands fist and he if hadn't already punched through the wall she thinks he might be tempted to do it now.<p>

"Happy?" He grinds out. "This new lie is supposed to make me _happy?_ What kind of joke am I to you Beckett? Just how easily do you think I can be played?"

The dark-haired cop startles at the venom in his voice, she steps backwards, she's completely confused.

"I don't understand." She tells him. "I've wanted to tell you – to be able to tell you for so long – I don't . . . why would you think I'm lying to you about this? I would never do that to you Castle – I would never . . . "She stops mid-sentence, her thoughts scrambling for purchase, trying to figure out what on earth is in his head that's causing this.

"You already did." He says. His hands rise and he buries them both in his hair, mussing it unbearably and her fingers itch to smooth it down – or muss it herself. Castle steps away, he paces the breadth of the room like an animal caged and Kate watches him helplessly – terrified to speak in case she makes matters worse.

"That day in the cemetery – when I told you I loved you Kate. I wish I could say that day was the worst of my life and it's certainly right up there, but the three months of days that followed . . . I just hope you never have to suffer the way I did for each of those. And to think that you knew – each of those days – wherever you were you knew, you knew how I felt and nothing. You gave me nothing. It's like I meant nothing – and you know what I've realized Kate – you want to know what I know – I did mean nothing. Nothing to you – if you could let me go for all that time without so much as text message to hold onto. I was so far down on your list of priorities that only when you figured out I had something that you wanted did you bother to come and find me. And what's worse is that you think I don't know that."

He shoots her a look from the far side of the room and it hits his mark. Her heart burns in her body – it goes up in flames and all Kate can do is shake her head in denial.

"I died every day Kate, every day that you were gone and there was nothing but your silence. Every day I pictured you with Josh. I pictured him nursing you back to health, pictured him kissing you and loving you and saving you and I died. Every day. And the only thing I could tell myself that let me stay sane was 'Kate doesn't know.' Do you understand? I told myself – 'Kate doesn't remember that I'm in love with her – she isn't being deliberately cruel. If she knew then she'd tell me she was okay. She'd tell me when she's coming back – if she knew she'd call me.' But you knew – you always knew."

He turns away from her again and the cop can see him trembling. A million denials and explanations sit on her tongue, but she can't get them out around the rocks in her throat.

"And now you say you love me and you wonder why I think it's a lie? It's just your guilt finally catching up with you Kate – because you know what you did was wrong – and you want to make it better. I know you _care _about me – that much I can say. I know you do. But love? If you loved me even half as much as I love you - then those three months would never have happened. Do you imagine for moment that if our situations had been reversed that I could have been apart from you for three months – willingly? I can barely stand three days Kate – and that is a piece of truth."

The author leans against the wall – his back to her, and Kate struggles frantically for the right thing to say.

* * *

><p>"You have every right to hate me Rick, and every right to doubt me. Those three months – I can never go back and undo them – but if you have any faith left in me then know that if I could I would. This wall inside me, every day of those three months Castle – it's like I was buried beneath it, and I couldn't feel anyone's pain but my own. I couldn't see beyond my own misery at all – I'd escaped the grave and yet I was there. And if you are looking for the truth then here it is – the knowledge that you <em>loved<em> me was the only reason I could think of for making my way back to my old life at all. Days passed for me Castle, weeks and I didn't really notice – at least not at first. And then by the time I did notice I began to struggle and as much as I wanted your love – as much as I needed it, I didn't feel enough like me to deserve it. I wasn't the woman you loved, and I doubted everything. Even the memory of what you had told me and still it was often just the thought of you that would get me through. Objectively I knew my silence must be hurting you Rick, but I pray to God you'll believe me when I say that I never for a moment understood how badly. If I'd had any sense of what you were going through – I would never have let it go on."

She stops to take a breath and waits to see if he'll say anything. When he remains resolutely where he is, remains as silent as the grave she takes it as sign to go on.

"I'm truly sorry that I lied to you. And I'm sorry I was so out of control that you felt you had no choice but to lie to me. You should know I don't blame you for withholding the information about my mother's case – about my case that you have, I'm just grateful Castle. I'm so grateful to you for loving me enough to continue working on it like you have. But I need you to stop now – and I never want you to go near it again Rick; are you listening to me? I'd rather never solve it – than live a day of my life without you."

The author spins back around.

"What did you just say?" He asks stunned.

"I said that I'd rather never solve it than live a day without you. You cannot risk yourself for this Castle. My mother's death has been crippling enough for me – but yours – there is no way I would survive it." She answers him.

Her partner blinks furiously – like he's trying to clear his vision. "You can't be serious Kate." He tells her, the cop can tell he does not believe just by his tone.

She nods her head emphatically.

"Oh but I am." She says as strongly as she can manage.

Castle steps closer. "There is nothing you want more than to solve your mother's murder Kate – nothing." His voice is still harsh, his commitment to the idea still ringing loud and clear.

So Beckett shakes her head this time. God, why can't he see it in her eyes – how utterly truthful she's being?

"You're wrong." She says. "Castle you are dead wrong."

The author steps closer again.

"Why am I wrong?" He asks, but his tone is changing ever so slightly and Beckett's heart soars as her brain seizes upon it.

"Because there is clearly something I want more Rick. Please you just have to believe what I'm trying so very hard to tell you."

The cop holds his gaze. She feels his eyes boring into her, reading and analyzing, like he's trying to rip the truth right out of her. So she stares back. She let's her eyes fill up with her love. Forcing all her defenses to drop, she lets her posture soften, lets her lips part. Beckett looks at him as she's never permitted herself to do before – with everything she feels for him naked on her face and inside she's terrified. Inside she's pleading with the universe he'll believe her now. He _has _to believe her – because they both lose everything if he doesn't.

Motionless she stands before him just trying to breathe.

Castle doesn't know what do to. He isn't any less angry, and yet . . . She's telling him the truth; the pure, and the unadulterated, and the undiluted, one hundred percent absolute truth.

He just can't figure out how to convince his damaged heart to believe it. Can't figure out how to make himself take that leap of faith.

Oh God she's so beautiful. And everything he's longed to see is right there on her face.

And all he can do is keep staring at her, and God help him there's this shy, tentative, adoringly smile blooming on her mouth.

"Castle?" She whispers.

He doesn't realize he reaches out until it registers that his hands are filled by her. And then she's in his arms and she's against his chest and desire ignites like flash paper – hot, deadly and bright.

His kiss his bruising.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Still procrastinating with individual responses - I know I'm so lame. But still - here is my Valentines gift to you - and yeah we might be slightly verging into 'M' territory a little at the end of this update here.  
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* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eleven: <strong>Seize what's Yours.

* * *

><p>It's an onslaught – his mouth on hers, brutal and possessive and ever so slightly out of control. It's both a dream and a reality and the only way she can breathe right now is through him – but Kate wouldn't have it any other way.<p>

Her partner's hands have laid claim to either side of her face now, holding her to his mouth as he takes what he clearly needs, and all she can do is hold onto his elbows and try to give back. Try to convey both in her compliance and her participation that she's with him every step of the way.

That she's his – completely.

But Jesus – she's never been kissed remotely like this before. She had no comprehension even that a kiss _could_ contain so much . . . of everything . . . most especially love. But she should have known she realizes - she should have known that the way she feels about _this_ man changes everything, heightens everything . . . means more.

Her heart is so full right now, beating so hard. There a crazy sensation in her stomach, heat pooling between her thighs, her skin feels weirdly alive. Neurons and nerve endings singing everywhere . . . it's almost too much. It's almost too good.

She never wants it to stop.

And then it does.

* * *

><p>Castle pulls back from her breathing hard, his pupils have dilated, his eyes have gone dark with desire, and Kate shivers. Because he looks absolutely deadly right now . . . strong . . . male . . . and her stupid knees tremble. She fights it but she can't contain the nervous smile that breaks over her face, because she wants him so badly . . . this possessive, strong and demanding version of her usually gentle and humorous shadow.<p>

She doesn't think she's ever been this turned on.

Maybe it's the sudden knowledge that Castle could control her – he could make her physically ache for him that's so delicious. No man has ever had that power over her – normally that power is hers alone to wield – but she has a feeling that for once he has the upper hand here – in this moment - and if someone's going to be begging it'll be her.

Beckett opens her mouth to say something, but finds there are no words on her tongue so instead she just pushes herself back into his arms and buries her head against his chest closing her eyes tight. The tight desperate desire within her fades beneath an avalanche of gratitude as her partner's arms go around her and he holds her close. And suddenly though Kate has no words, she has plenty of tears of relief, she clings to him her fingers grasping, fisting in his shirt – fighting for control.

"Shsshhhh. It's okay. It's okay Kate - I believe you." The author whispers to her softly, his damaged right hand cradling the back of her head. Her tears are making his shirt damp and gentling his desire. His breathing slows, his heart rate is calming down beneath her cheek – it's unbelievably soothing - hypnotic.

Needy words finally form in her mouth, spill forth, she refuses to filter them. "I can't lose you Castle. Not now, not ever . . . "

Each word is a balm, a salve – to both of them.

"You won't Kate . . . you won't. I love you." He promises her. "I love you."

* * *

><p>The writer can't quite wrap his head around how quickly he's gone from sadness and utter despair to pure elation ramped up by desire.<p>

Because it's everything that Beckett's just handed him – absolutely everything and he cannot possibly be so lucky. During their fight last night, when she inadvertently confessed to remembering his declaration of love – his whole word and all his hopes for a future with her had gone up in flames. So he'd run from it – run from her as quickly as he could. And when he'd woken up this morning – still running – Castle had been convinced he was only delaying the moment when he had to deal with losing her . . . and now . . . as swiftly as his world had been ending; it's been born anew.

This kind of stuff only happens when he's writing it – when he has all the control - and yet it's truth.

A truth it seems he's forever been waiting on, for the woman he loves to love him in return. For her to need him – to be willing to sacrifice everything for him – just as he's long been willing to do for her. An equal love – that's what he's wanted, prayed and hoped for. To be her everything, because she is everything to him.

It's such a huge relief for the author. It's so huge that he can feel it down to his soul – this gift of freedom – this chance to love. There's _so_ much he's been wanting to give to Kate – to be for her, and so much he's needed in return. It's a miracle, his miracle that she's here; she's nestled in his arms.

"Tell me again." He murmurs into her hair. "Tell me – please Kate."

Castle swears he can feel her smiling against his chest, feels her sigh happily as she replies.

"I love you."

"Rick." He urges, and he feels her smile widen.

"I love you _Rick_." She responds. "I _want _you Rick."

His breath catches in his throat and sticks there a long moment, because it's not just her words; it's the desire in them, coating them – the need. The both of them are running on adrenaline, are burdened by lack of sleep. They are over-emotional, un-fed and injured – so the idea of him taking her to bed – taking her – right this minute – it shouldn't be an option for him, it shouldn't be all he can think about . . . but he needs to . . . he needs too . . .

* * *

><p>"Castle. Take me to bed."<p>

_Oh hell_. She thinks. It already sounds like she's begging as these words fall out her mouth without real thought as it's the only thought in her head. There is only desire singing through her body as exhaustion and pain flea before the magic conjured simply by the nearness of him. The fever his touch ignites.

The need is so strong – it overpowers everything else, usurps the need for nutrition and rest – right now all she can feel is want - wanton. An aching emptiness he can banish for her, a 'togetherness'– a sense of being complete that only he can make her feel. She needs it . . . she needs it . . .

* * *

><p>"Kate . . . . We should . . . I mean you need to eat – to rest – we have all the time in the world."<p>

They are the right words, he knows they are the right words – but they sure sound wrong, they don't sound convincing at all – hell even he doesn't believe him – not when he utters them in that tone. Shit. Castle forces himself to try again, to be persuasive – he can do persuasive – he's a master at persuasive.

He clears his throat, tries to ignore the warmth of her all down the length of him, the scent of her hair, the softness his fingers are tangled in, the desire that's determinedly rising again and forcing everything else away.

"Kitchen Kate . . . I'll cook you something . . . we should talk . . . and eat . . . you should sleep – we could cuddle or something."

Dammit not smooth . . . and not convincing at all. Not when his voice has noticeably dropped, and his body is hardening, and he's afraid he might be shaking from trying to hold it all back.

The writer closes his eyes; he reaches for some sort of control . . . holds on – but tenuously.

* * *

><p>Against him she smiles, Kate can't help it and after all he cannot see - her face is still buried against the breadth of his chest, while her partner speaks words to her that try to disguise what he actually wants to do. She wants possessive Castle back – the dangerous – deadly looking one, so she shifts very purposefully in his arms, pushing her lower body against him, delighted when his hips push back helplessly and she feels him hardening against her.<p>

Oh. Dear. God.

But this is what they need – this is what he _really_ wants –she knows it. Absolutely feels it because this is what she wants too. More than food, or rest – after the last twenty four hours nothing else but this can matter – their desire – their mutual need.

She almost destroyed everything between them, she almost ruined their future. So now it's imperative she gives him _everything_ – she wants to be his, truly his, because only when she is can he fully be hers.

_So claim him then_. Her heart demands.

_And right now_. Her body insists.

Her brain stutters, searching for the right words to speak, the words to banish her partner's gentle, chivalrous side – and make the more dangerous version of him take control again. Kate shivers, pure anticipation – before she removes her head from his chest and looks up at him – ready to let him see reflected on her face the words that she will find – will let flow out of her now.

They finally come.

"If you want me _take_ me Castle. . . I need you to touch me just because you _have_ to make me yours. Please Rick – please . . ."

* * *

><p>Her words just undo him. They take his tenuous control and they shred it. They sweep away his token resistance – and set him aflame. Pure possessiveness rises in him. It's greedy and fueled by the pain of the last day – by the terrible soul-breaking 'almost' loss of all his dreams. Castle lets go of his worries and his concerns – becomes aware of nothing but his need.<p>

He feels it spreading through him as the deepening desire in her eyes eggs him on – and he grins suddenly like a predator, while he watches her struggle to contain her gasp of triumph.

"Oh you're mine Kate." He tells her roughly. "And not just now - forever . . . do you understand? I promise you'll never question it again by the time I'm finished with you."

She never will – not ever, because he takes her hard against the wall.

It's quick and dirty and somehow exactly how they both always knew it would be the first time. You can't repress all they've too long denied and have it be anything but fast and desperate . . . purely needy . . . and physically overwhelming.

But then he takes her to bed – and the lovemaking begins.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: For anyone who missed the smut (yes I wrote it, I did, I actually went there). Chapter 11.5 is posted as a separate 'M' rated fiction under the not very creative name of 'The Lights Go Down Chapter 11 point 5.' (What? I wanted to make it easy to find and I had nothing better.) For those of you who read it, I hope you liked it - it's all Purplangel's fault - see she asked really nicely and then of course the idea was there and like it's hard to imagine having sex with Castle - because you know it's not! Anyway I ramble, so I may add another longer part to that fic - the 'lovemaking' part as opposed to the quick and somewhat dirty sex-against-the-wall scene. Let me work on it, I'll post it there when I'm done . . . in the meantime, here is Chapter Twelve - the following morning.  
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* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Twelve: <strong>Can I hold you for a lifetime?

* * *

><p>Bright winter sunshine pours through the windows of the beach house's master bedroom. The storm of the day before has finally blown itself out – nothing but a brisk wind still remains, with high-altitude clouds scudding across a vivid sky. The ocean is lively, white crested waves a plenty crashing onto the shore and it's this immensely peaceful sound that Kate hears as she opens her eyes.<p>

Blinking in the brightness she stretches carefully – muscles in places that haven't seen action in a while are gently protesting, and she can detect a faint throb from her injured ankle. All in all though, she doesn't think she's felt as good as she does this morning in years – she feels free – she feels just incredibly alive.

Turning her head on the pillow she finds Castle still sound asleep, his handsome face turned slightly away from her as he lies sprawled on his back. The cop sits up slowly, unwilling to disturb his rest, allowing herself long moments to just absorb his naked presence in the huge bed next to her – to revel in it – in being the woman who gets to guard his slumber and watch him lying there so peacefully, so unaware.

He's so . . . he's beautiful she thinks – truly. A beautiful man not only outside but inside too, and the magnitude of her love for him, the power of it that she can feel sitting there within her – that's beautiful too. Precious and vital and this morning suddenly it's not nearly as scary as it's always seemed before.

The idea of losing it – of losing him – that's scary – that will most likely terrify her forever; but the thought of giving into it, of living it – feeling it –admitting to it – those fears are somehow on this morning long gone.

Because being _with him_ is amazing. Being his lover as well as his partner – she didn't know – how could she - before it happened how happy it would make her. How right it would feel to be as close to him as she can get. And she didn't realize how it _would _change them – to have that distance eradicated, that wall gone. How it gifts her with a sense of peace – of home – the likes of which she can barely remember. She'll never think of 'home' now and not instinctively think of him - he's become that now – because _he's_ the place where her heart always is.

Beckett's stomach rumbles and she wonders about getting up and making them some breakfast. Because while they did eventually eat last night – splitting a pizza wrapped in bathrobes in front of the living room fire, before they made love for the third time in as many hours – that was all either of them had eaten all day. All the emotional upheaval combined with all the physical activity that followed and frankly Kate's ravenous.

She should definitely get up then – get up and go cook them something. Because if she doesn't go and do it right now before Castle wakes up – then there is no way in hell she's leaving this bed anytime soon. Not when just the sight of him lying there has heat curling deliciously through her body, centering itself at her core and throbbing in anticipation.

It's going to be problem for them – both of them - she'd bet her badge on it, finding a balance when this new side of their partnership could so easily take complete control – at least in the beginning.

But there is time enough to worry about that later – right now Castle's wonderful kitchen and the lure of a full stomach are calling. Beckett shifts to the side of the bed and discovers some more aches and pains as she stands – cautiously testing her left foot with her weight before she stands fully upon it. She snatches up her borrowed bathrobe from the floor at the side of the bed and wills herself to head downstairs. At the door of the bedroom she stops and gives in – looks back – God its crazy how hard it is to leave his side – and then she slaps herself mentally before she walks in the direction of the stairs.

* * *

><p>His arms are empty – it's his first waking thought, so Castle reaches out without opening his eyes, instantly distressed when his fingertips find only an empty bed and sheets that are cool to the touch. He swallows convulsively before he opens his eyes, scanning the brightly lit bedroom in an anxious hurry . . . where is she? But then his gaze falls on the pile of Kate's clothes still lying on the chaise before the French windows, and the writer wills his foolish heart to calm down.<p>

Kate's here. She's in love with him. Everything is fine – better than fine it's amazingly perfect and just because it is so good doesn't mean it's on the verge of being snatched away.

The walls between them are gone – the secrets are out – and their love for each other remains. He can believe it – truly he can. He'd just find it easier to believe it if Kate was still lying naked next to him, but then he smells it – bacon frying. A seriously happy grin swallows up his entire face then he's up and out of the huge bed instantly. His Kate makes a mean breakfast and she's clearly a genius because it suddenly dawns on him that he's absolutely freaking staving.

Castle grabs the bathrobe he was using the night before, shucks it on hurriedly over his naked form and heads downstairs.

He finds her very busy and looking adorably ravished in the kitchen and for long moment the author doesn't make her aware that he's there. He just takes the time to stop and watch her, because he could watch her forever – he always sees something new.

This morning she's in a borrowed blue bathrobe that belongs to Alexis and as Kate is so tall it sits tantalizingly high. The endless line of her legs as she leans over the stove is stunning, the toned thighs tapering down to her slender ankles and pretty narrow feet. He can see the long line of her back, the curve of her butt, the strong but narrow shoulders, and the perfection of her neck. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen on most days – but this morning – now that she's his – now she's suddenly more, even more gorgeous, she's more real. Castle smiles to himself; because her hair is in complete disarray and shoved up in the messiest bun he's ever seen, while her face is bare of make-up and yet the pool of warmth that's surging in his belly – the want that's hitting him so fiercely – jeez it's . . . the only word he seems to have for it is 'unreal.'

He's wanted other women before obviously. He has two ex-wives and a string of meaningless sexual encounters behind him. He's been around, been a playboy gained well frankly a lot of experience and God knows he's not a teenage boy in throes of his first affair – but this _want _– this _desire_ – this insatiable need he feels for Kate. This is new – this is completely new – and it's like a drug, the wickedly addictive kind.

Now that he's had her he can never go back. One night and he's hooked and though he knows they've said forever . . . suddenly he needs to be sure. He needs to hear it again, how in this thing with him she really is. Because if he cannot now contemplate a night she's not sleeping beside him – and he can't, it's really that simple – then he really wants to know she's feeling it too.

It's time to make his presence known then.

"You know somehow this morning . . . the staring thing is no longer creepy." Her voice is warm, loving . . . she sounds happy and it makes him smile.

"I was just admiring your attire . . . I gotta say Kate I really like that bathrobe on you, especially the amount of skin it still leaves me."

She turns around from the stove, a piece of bacon in her hand, which she pops in her mouth with a grin followed by a moan of delight that his body misinterprets. Shit. He's going to be rising to everything for a while isn't he!

"I hope you've saved enough of the good stuff for me Ms. Beckett . . . not that I even knew I had bacon in the house.

Kate grins.

"I found it in the freezer, there's another pack too actually. I also found some frozen waffles, some concentrated OJ, coffee, eggs and some English muffins . . . I pretty much made everything 'cause I don't know about you Castle but I'm starving. It must have been all that good sex." Her eyes are twinkling, he can't remember the last time he saw her eyes do that.

"Good?" He says, sounding as affronted as he can manage.

Kate giggles. Honest to God giggles and the musical sound of it, the way her naked face lights up, the green in her eyes flashing – it has his heart squeezing in his chest. He wants to see her like this every day – he wants her this happy, this relaxed this playful. He doesn't care what it costs him or what he has to do; he's going to make sure he sees her just like this more often than not.

Castle knows he's staring at her kind of dumbstruck, and his expression doesn't change as she sidles around the kitchen counter and up to him. She seems so little without the heels, wrapping her arms around his waist and looking up him with the most adoring look on her face – no woman has ever looked at him like he hung the moon before. The writer searches for words, manages only to murmur . . .

"If it was only good . . . I can do better."

"Okay OK, it was better than good." She concedes cheekily.

"It was?"

The detective nods, stretches up on her tiptoes to brush her mouth hotly across his. Her tongue seeks entrance to his mouth and he grants it happily – food is for the moment forgotten – he just wants this.

* * *

><p>Kate's still starving, but she just has to kiss him – she has too . . . she has to be in his arms, has to assure herself this is real. She'd been engrossed in preparing them breakfast when she'd sensed him enter the kitchen. Some sort of six sense shooting down her spine as she detected his eyes on her. She loves the way Castle looks at – the way he pays attention; it makes her feel like she's the center of the world. It makes her realize that she's known – that he knows her, who she is and he loves her for it. She knows he loves the way she looks, that he's attracted to her, but she also knows that her appearance is not <em>why<em> he loves her so much. It's the same way she feels about him. He's gorgeous, he's charming, but it's his heart, it's his mind that has her so head-over heels for him.

Still – the physical thing is pretty compelling combined with the love thing and as her tongue tangles with his, his hands groping beneath the bathrobe to cup her ass she has to force herself to break away before she has him take her on the kitchen counter.

Not that, that isn't a wonderful idea . . . but, right she was focusing, she was . . . she was answering him.

"It was the best Castle." She whispers, before she brushes another, far chaster kiss over his bottom lip.

Her partner's face softens into a delighted grin, as his eyebrow climbs and a hint of smugness lights his extraordinary blue eyes.

"Really . . . _the BEST_ . . . you mean as in 'the best you've ever had?" He replies.

Kate rolls her eyes . . .but she's willing to put up with him being unbearably smug about it, if he's her one – and he is – he totally is – he can be smug, what does she care?

"Yeah Rick. That's exactly what I meant . . . but after breakfast we _will_ try for better – after all . . . I'm thinking there's a lot of room for improvements when you have forever."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thanks again for all the support my friends - we are almost, but not quite at the end.  
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* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Thirteen: <strong>Increments of Healing.

* * *

><p>"I meant to ask you . . . "He says, suddenly breaking the comfortable silence they've been wrapped in. "You haven't mentioned the precinct at all Kate - and although obviously I'm really happy that you're here . . . what about your work?" The writer's voice is gentle almost tentative as he questions her.<p>

They've been walking the private beach at the rear of Castle's enormous house, wrapped up warmly against the late winter chill – Kate's frame completely dwarfed beneath a borrowed coat of Rick's. Hand in hand they've strolled along the shoreline for several kilometers; the wind is still biting and the afternoon sky is about half-full of clouds. They've had a really good morning. A huge breakfast that Kate had cobbled together followed by a long bath that they both shared, before Castle had suggested a walk . . . a chance to get some fresh air . . . to talk a little.

The euphoria of their morning has carried them until now, and the new familiarity they share – the physical connection, has them both at ease with each other in a way that's entirely new – and yet there are still things that have to be addressed between them. Kate wonders if her partner's question about the precinct is Rick's attempt at trying to steer them in the right direction and so she answers his question by asking him one in return.

"Are you asking me if I'm playing hooky?" She tells him with a soft smile as she looks at him sideways and from beneath the frame of her long eyelashes.

The corners of his mouth twitch up and he nods. "Yeah I guess I am . . . and I gotta say that I like the thought of you dodging work to come and find me far too appealing – sorry."

Kate smiles inwardly - he definitely doesn't sound sorry.

"I called Esposito on the drive up – told him to cover for me with Gates – that I was feeling a little off and I'd told you to stay home out the way if I wasn't there to occupy you. Espo's good – he didn't question it."

Castle grins. "Of course he didn't. You are the only reason I'm there . . . not much point for me to be going in without you."

The cop squeezes the strong fingers that are entwined with hers. "We're covered Castle – at least for a day or so. And it's funny . . . I'm not in a hurry to leave here – not until you're ready to come back with me."

The writer doesn't immediately respond. He squeezes her fingers back, but he's now looking away from her, blue eyes studying the waves breaking on the sand – something is very clearly on his mind she can almost _feel_ the gears turning inside his head.

"We should talk huh?" She offers quietly, and calmly. She isn't worried exactly, she knows firmly where they both stand, but although they've disclosed their secrets and the miscommunication about her feelings for him – there are still issues sitting between them that shouldn't be allowed to remain there. Things that need to be said by each of them – and for so long that has been 'what they don't do', and these old patterns are hard to change. They've spent the last twenty-four hours together making love - physically saying 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you'. Connecting with each other in the most fundamental way they can. And it's been beautiful – exhilarating – but it can only mend them so far – the rest they'll have to work for.

"You can ask me anything Rick – I love you." She tells him, hoping the quiet confidence in her voice will reassure him, because she's seen fleeting hints of disbelief in his eyes still. Small moments of mild panic as he fought back the sensation that things between them are too good to be real.

Castle sighs loudly and she can see him squaring his shoulders . . . her stomach does a small flip in fear, whatever is bugging him it's important but he doesn't think she's going to like it.

"Ask what you need to ask Rick – just lay it out there." She encourages.

He meets her eyes and says defiantly. "I can do that – but can you?"

Thrown, both of Kate's eyebrows immediately quirk upwards. "I won't hold back Castle – not now I promise. I do understand how destructive our patterns had become, how it lead us to the brink of separation. You dive, I dive now okay."

Her partner nods. "Okay." He replies, taking a deep breath and before he says, "I need to know what actually happened with you and Josh. What ended it? And I hate that I'm bringing this up today. This most precious, most amazing of days – I'm sorry Kate, truly I am. It's just that it feels like a weight still sitting there inside me- because the three months you were gone – well I thought he was with you and even now I can't let it go. Even though you're mine - I can't fully put those three months behind us without knowing Kate, without exorcising his ghost."

The cop's eyes widen. "Josh is what's distressing you? That's it?"

Castle nods – a little bit of misery in his face, and remarkably it makes Kate smile – this is all he's worrying about? That's ridiculous.

"Rick you were the one who told _me _I didn't love him. You were the one who told me that I was hiding in a relationship with Josh, because it was easier than facing the reality that I was in love with you. And you were right – you were exactly right." Kate squeezes him around the waist hard, silly, stubborn man.

"It's not funny." Her partner says seriously, and Kate's smile disappears like smoke – he's really worrying about Josh? Oh he is . . . he really is.

She squeezes him again, waits for him to look at her but her partner refuses to co-operate. He's tense within the circle of her arms, in fact she can almost feel him vibrating with frustration and it wounds her deeply. Gina's face pops into her mind and she can feel herself filling with empathy in a sudden rush – she hurries to placate him.

"I'm sorry – I'm not making light of it Rick I swear. I'm not dismissing your feelings, or your right to them. I'm just relieved that what's bothering you is a demon I can slay – that's it."

Castle nods but still won't make eye contact – so Kate waits him out, lets him center himself again before he's forced to meet her gaze, eventually her patience is rewarded.

Still she hates the only partially masked trepidation in his blue eyes when he asks quietly,

"Did you ever love him Kate?"

Beckett shakes her head. "I already answered that Rick – no – I never felt love for Josh. I liked him – I really liked him – because he's a good man who's dedicated and compassionate and fun. And I think I could have loved him – if I hadn't already fallen in love with you. "

This earns her a small smile, a brief lifting of the corners of his mouth and an ever so slight lightening of the distress in his eyes. Castle's palms her face with his left hand, his voice is gentle.

"He loved you though – didn't he?" He asks.

Kate sighs heavily. "Yeah. I'm afraid he did. And when I ended things between us I really hurt him, and I'll always be sorry for that – for keeping him long past the point I should have let him go."

"And when did you let him go Kate? Because I remember him holding your hand the morning after you were shot. I can still see how 'together' you appeared when I walked into that hospital room when I close my eyes. I want to be glad if he was there for your recovery – I know I should be . . . but it kills me – it still kills me because it should have been me Kate. It should have been me."

Kate turns her face and kisses his palm, frees a hand to keep his fingers there. She's fighting to find the right thing to say – because clearly the last forty-eight hours have brought it all back for him with a vengeance – though she's willing to bet before then he would have sworn he'd let it go.

And yet from the moment her lie was revealed he's been re-living and re-experiencing all of it, falling down a rabbit hole of his own creation while his vivid imagination tortured him as he fell.

God. She really wishes their physical actions could be enough to banish what's still haunting him – wishes her loving of him could make it all just go away. But Castle needs words from her – words are too integral to his make-up – and only by giving him the missing pieces of the story can she finally make his pain go away.

Stretching up Kate kisses him, urgently, passionately, coercing his mouth to open under the onslaught of hers as she pushes her tongue against his. She keeps it up until she's sure he can feel nothing but the heat that rises between them, the pure physical manifestation of their love – and then breathing hard she pulls back. There's a fierce protective light in her eyes.

"It was a week or so in." She tells him honestly. "We broke up on the day I was discharged from the hospital Rick."

Surprise streaks clearly across her partner's face and her heart leaps when he doesn't even try to hide the relief in his eyes.

"Really?" He asks.

She nods. "Yes really. He'd saved my life Castle – in the OR I mean. But _you_ were my reason for living – and I could own to that by letting him go. It was all I could do for you right then Castle . . . all I could give you back that said 'I love you too', even if I wasn't ready – was too broken at the time to let you know it."

"Why haven't you told me this before Kate?" He pleads.

She kisses his nose, tries to make him understand.

"I couldn't tell you 'when', without it revealing 'why' and until yesterday Castle – until yesterday I was too scared to try. I was still clinging to this idea that when _I _was ready, when _I _was less broken I'd finally let you in and I'd tell you everything . . . "

The author interrupts her as he kisses her.

"And now you have." He tells her. "God Kate – don't you see, you just set me free."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: After this – only an epilogue to go . . . **

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><p><strong>Chapter Fourteen: <strong>Making it Count.

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><p>They are back at the stretch of beach directly behind Castle's home, seated on the sand behind the natural hump of a dune where the biting ocean wind cannot get to them. Here the sun warms them, allows them to remain outside and simply enjoy the gentle cry of the gulls overhead, the relaxing pounding of the waves surging against the shore – the peace they've finally found in each other.<p>

"Castle."

His head is resting on her right shoulder as she sits within the vee of his thighs, he's all around her – and she doesn't think she's ever been as blessed as she feels right now.

"Hmmmmmmmm."

His reply is merely a hum that Kate can feel go right through her, the vibration of his voice sending a frisson of need straight down her spine. A small sound – nothing more and she suddenly wants him again – wants to retreat back inside to his huge comfortable bed and resume her exploration of every naked inch of him.

So good.

But she needs to ask him something first. It's not that she wants to ask – not really, but she wants to remain at peace. Wants to believe him when he tells her that he's free of it now – the secrets and the lies. Wants to be absolutely certain that she is too – that there isn't anything that remains that could possible taint what they're becoming. Because every moment passing new ties are growing, branching out from him and from her and entwining, binding them ever more tightly to each other – and Kate couldn't bear for anything to hinder that process – not when its taken them so very long to get here.

"I need you to promise me something." She begins, twisting around on the sand so that she can look up at him – at his handsome, untroubled face, those gorgeous blue eyes of his an ocean of honesty as they stare back her.

Castle studies her silently for moment – waiting for her to define 'something' but when she doesn't elaborate he gives her the only honest answer he can.

"I'll try." He says softly, one large hand reaching up to tuck her dark hair behind her left ear. He catches her lobe between his fingers, warms the cold shell with the heat of his palm, cups her face and brushes his thumb over her lower lip before he adds. "I can promise you pretty much anything Kate – anything but. . . "

She fills in where he trails off. "Anything that doesn't preclude you from doing whatever you feel is necessary to protect me."

Castle's face grows serious and he nods, brushes his thumb over her lip again. "Yes Kate – anything but that – that . . . is beyond me. Protecting you is as necessary as breathing – and I don't intend to give that up either." Wry humor colors his voice, but he hopes she can hear that there is a promise in his tone. He will protect her – with his life if necessary – it's as simple as that.

Beckett brings her hand up to cover his where it cradles her jaw. She tugs his fingers loose – snares them inside hers.

"I know you can't promise me that anymore than I could promise not to step in front of a bullet for you – I know that. You're my partner – I've accepted you into that role in every way Rick – but that's not where I was going with this. I just want you to promise me that you won't be mad – that you'll trust in me when I say I can hear this and it will all still be okay."

Castle looks puzzled. "Hear what . . . exactly?" He asks.

"Whatever it is that you know about my mother's case - that I still don't." She replies. "I stared at your 'murder board' all night the night we fought so badly Castle. All night I studied what you had there, the questions you were looking for answers too. For hours I went over and over it and I realized there isn't much that I don't know – but I do know there is something more, and all I'm asking is that you tell me now, let this be something we _both_ know – even if I don't think we should do anything about it."

The writer's eyes narrow at her. "You told me I had to stay away from it. If I do then so do you." He says adamently.

Kate nods, squeezes his hand tightly, hugs it to her chest against her heart – tries to make him understand.

"I will. I can. But I still have to _know_ Castle. I have to know that you haven't already put yourself at risk – that there isn't already a target on your back. If we both know all of it – we can be ready if you have." She beseeches.

Castle stares at her amazed.

"So this isn't about solving your mother's case – this is about . . . "

"You." The cop says definitely. "This is about you Rick. I meant it when I told you that I understand why you did it because it's the exact same reason I have to know. If we come across something in the future – if we can solve my mother's case without it costing either of us our lives then we will. Together we will Castle. But right now we are faced with the hard reality that we probably never will solve it – and I've finally made my peace with that. I've finally allowed myself to know that – and to let it go. I miss my Mom – Castle. I miss her everyday – and oh my God would she have loved you. But I know she'd rather I lived and loved you – than have either of us killed trying to get justice for her – and that's the truth."

Castle smiles and leans in to kiss her, frees his fingers from hers and cups her head in both of his hands, lets the kiss escalate until they're both breathless and needy, before he pulls back.

He studies the swirls of color within her irises – so beautiful, such a complicated mix of light and dark – the overall effect so stunning. But he's never seen her eyes look like they do today – so free of shadows – so full of joy. A wave of gratitude fills his heart because he's so lucky; they're both so lucky - they've almost lost the chance for this happiness so many times in the past. He can read in her eyes that she feels it too – this passionate need to protect what has grown between them, even as it means letting the past go – so he'll have to trust in what he sees – trust that she can handle knowing all he knows – and still do this with him.

"There isn't much to tell." He says quietly.

Kate's eyebrow rises. "But?"

"But what there is, I will share with you." He says.

The detective smiles in relief. "So what else is there Rick – aside from the information on the smart-board?"

She watches him hesitate for a split second, wrestling with his natural impulses that are probably still screaming at him to remain silent. Then his face relaxes and he gives up the remainder of the story.

"There's a man Kate. I don't know who he really is – or how he's connected, except to tell you that he was a friend of Roy Montgomery – he was someone Roy trusted. Before he was killed the Captain sent this man a package – it contained information – again I don't know what information – but whatever is it, the person behind your mother's murder doesn't want that information to come out. Its leverage Kate – it's everything Montgomery knew and used as a bargaining chip to keep himself, his family and you – safe."

Kate nods slowly, absorbing. "What does he call himself?" She asks.

There's a wry tilt to her partner's mouth when he responds. "Mr. Smith."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Yeah . . . so we don't know who he is and I'm merely guessing but if I know anything about Montgomery, he'd have chosen someone he trusted whose connection to him is almost unknown, for this mysterious 'Mr. Smith's' safety as well as our own. So how do you know about him Castle?"

"Shortly after you returned to the precinct . . . he called me. Told me he was friend of Roy's, told me I had to stop you from pursuing your case – and your mother's. And if I didn't pull you back, you'd be killed – with no mistakes this time."

Castle watches her intently, can see the wheels turning in her mind and all the while the fight they had the night she found out echoes inside his head. Strangely he's not worried about her anger coming back – not worried that she's still feeling betrayed by him – he's just concerned that she'll think of something he didn't and they'll be pulled right back in. The author doesn't want that – even as a part of him feels horribly guilty at the thought – because he should want this case solved, its important – but its really not.

Not in the big scheme of things, because he knows there is no punishment that can fit this orchestrator's crime. No term of imprisonment, or death sentence – no public accounting can compensate for all the lives lost – for all the lives destroyed. And the life he wants with Kate – the happiness he knows they deserve – nothing is important enough to detract from that – or important enough to risk it for.

"Do you know how to contact him?"

"Originally – no. But then at another point he gave me number to use - he's called me a couple of times Kate - he called me the second time when Mayor Wheldon was under suspicion of murder – somewhere behind the scenes he was trying to help get Wheldon exonerated." He tells her.

Kate's eyes narrow. "Why?"

The writer blows out a breath. "Robert wanted to run for Governor – eventually President – but he wouldn't play ball with the powers that really control this country and so they set out to take him down."

The cop looks baffled. "And this Mr. Smith was involved, but wanted to ensure Wheldon remained in office – why?"

"No Major Wheldon in office – no Richard Castle in the 12th Precinct – no-one to stop Kate Beckett from looking into things she shouldn't." He offers, putting it as concisely as he can.

Kate looks thoughtful. "I see." She says eventually. "You don't know how to contact him then – but let me guess – you've tried?' She asks.

Her partner nods. "The phone number he gave me to call him on was taken out of service the moment we closed that case. And this man isn't stupid Kate – even if we traced it we'd find it belonged to a burner phone with no connection to him. This man exists, the information that's protecting you exists, and as long as you stay away from your mother's case there's no reason to believe that you aren't safe."

Kate nods. "And so long as you do the same no reason to believe there's a risk to you either."

The cop looks skyward for a long while, finally closing her eyes it looks to Castle like she's saying a silent prayer, and he waits . . . she'll tell him when she's ready what they do next.

She's still and quiet so long though that he get nervous, brushing his fingers across her cheek he urges her to talk to him.

"Well? Talk to me Kate . . . you know everything now. I want to believe you can still walk away – please tell me we can – both of us – together – we can just get on with our lives. Be in love – be together – tell me your mother would understand." He pleads.

His partner's eyes don't open – at least not a first, but she does speak.

"Mom would understand Castle – like I said, she'd rather I lived, lived and loved you – than died for this."

Castle's heart swells. "So we walk away – truly Kate? We let this go now?

Now she does look at him. Eyes clear and bright – still full of joy – full of peace, he doesn't know how, he doesn't care why – but he does need her to say it . . . and finally she does.

"We let it all go Castle – not just my mother's case, but all the hurt, the misunderstandings, the truths we both kept hidden – its all gone – it's all history. And this Rick, you and me and all that's here in our hands right now – we build us a future from that. And we're happy Castle – can't you see?"

The writer get's up off the sand and hauls her up after him, tugging her into his arms – holding her tightly against him – right where she belongs.

"I can see it." He says roughly against her ear, emotions crowding in on him, "I can see it all – I've always been able to see it Kate . . . that the future was always you and me."


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N. I apologize for how long this took to be posted – would you believe me when I tell you I've written at least five differing epilogues to this story and I didn't like any of them! In the end this is very short – but hopefully sweet – and brings the story to a close in the only way that seemed right.**

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><p><strong>Epilogue:<strong>

* * *

><p>"Kate – it's been a while. How have you been?"Dr. Burke ushers his favorite patient into his office, as a soft warm smile lights up his deep brown eyes.<p>

Kate smiles back before her eyes scan the familiar comforting tones of her doctor's spacious office, everything in it looks pretty much the same, but her detective's eyes note that there is a new plaque on the wall behind his desk. The tall dark-haired detective makes a bee-line for her usual seat by the window. She feels strange to back here, but not in an uncomfortable way, and considering all that this man has been able to help her with in the past, Beckett's glad she stopped by.

The shrink takes a seat in the armchair opposite her and smiles once again - silently waiting on her.

"I've been good." She says in the end, answering his initial question. "I'm great even. Sometimes I can't quite believe my amazing life is my actually _my_ life – if you know what I mean."

Dr. Burke nods around an even wider smile.

"I'm really pleased to hear it." He tells her sincerely. "You've come a long way Kate – and you deserve it."

A soft sigh of contentment escapes the cop. "Yeah – I finally feel like maybe I do."

The shrink watches her closely for a moment, his patient certainly looks really good – rested, not quite so stick thin as she once was, her brittle edges are all smoothed out, and although something is on her mind – she would not be here if it wasn't – for once she doesn't look troubled and he's certainly glad for that.

"So what brings you by?" He inquires softly. "Not that you aren't welcome to come to see me anytime you feel the need – but you haven't made an appointment in eight months Kate and you look very peaceful, relaxed – happy even – so naturally I'm mystified as to the purpose of your appointment." He says with no lack of irony.

The cop laughs – something he's never heard her do before, and the shrink's curiosity ramps up.

"I am." She says. "I am peaceful. I am happy . . . and I guess that's funny – because it's exactly the reason I've come by."

Arching an ebony brow the doc gives Kate an 'oh-really?' look, but beyond that he doesn't say anything.

"Yes really." She says, answering the pointed-look with a wide-open smile. "I just – things since the last time I saw you – well everything changed after that day - everything fell into place, and I really just wanted to thank you. I really just wanted you to know how grateful I am to you for what you did for me that morning. How you forced me to see my behavior in the right light that day – how you gave me the right advice. It didn't feel right that I haven't come by to see you and say that."

Dr. Burke nods. "No thanks are necessary Kate – but nonetheless I appreciate the sentiment. I actually surmised from your absence that things after I'd seen you must have gone well."

Clear green eyes shot full of joy look right into him.

"Yeah they did - in the end. I mean initially there was heart-ache, and then there was honesty and after that there were a lot of tears, but the outcome was everything I wanted. More than that even – it was everything I never dared to dream I wanted – until it was what I got." She tells him.

The doctor inclines his head thoughtfully. This is good - this is exactly what he wanted to hear.

"And so how is your partner Kate?" Dr. Burke asks her next.

It must be the right question because a smile with enough wattage to power the city joins the joy he can see in her gaze.

"He's . . . more than I deserve." She replies. "Castle's still Castle – he's still devoted, still annoying – he's still amazing and still brilliant and still loving. He has an open and honest heart and a capacity to forgive – me especially – that shakes me to my core sometimes. The truth is that he just fills my life Dr. Burke – in every way."

"I'm so glad." The shrink tells her.

"He's here actually." Kate adds suddenly. "He's in the waiting room because he asked to meet you, and if I know him – and I do – I'm pretty sure Castle has his own thanks he wants to say."

An ebony brow arches again. The shrink already feels like he knows the famous author somewhat – via Kate obviously, and all they've worked through together, but he didn't think he'd have the opportunity to actually meet the man. Now that the opportunity has presented itself, the psychiatrist finds that he's delighted.

"Well go and get him by all means." He tells his patient, watching her with a wry smile as she jumps up immediately and strides to open the door. Moments later a tall, broad presence appears in the doorway as the writer enters the room.

The shrink notices the author focuses on his partner first, smiling at her adoringly before he turns to acknowledge him – his arm outstretched to shake the doctor's hand.

Kate makes the introductions.

"Castle I'd like you to meet Dr. Carter Burke."The writer smiles charmingly and as her partner shakes the shrinks hand firmly, Kate turns to speak to him.

"Dr. Burke." She says somewhat shyly. "I'd like you to meet my husband – Richard Castle."


End file.
